Heading
1870. London Figaro, 8 June. It may be taken as an axiom that if a cut-*away has been made for a fashionable man six feet high and broad in proportion, it will never sit nicely on the form of a wee little weaver of five feet two.
1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 29 Oct., p. 3, col. 1. Off flies the frock coat and the flowing necktie; on goes the little red bow and the seedy brown 'cutaway.'
Cut or Cut up Didoes, Shindies,
Shines, etc., verbal phr. (colloquial).—To
play pranks or tricks;
the same as cut capers.
18(?). Pickings from the Picayune, p. 147. This 'ere Frenchman has been cutting up didoes in my house now for several days; he aint sober onst a week, and breaks all my cheers and tables Mr. Recorder.
1851. New York Tribune, 10 April. Had the Free States been manly enough, true enough, to enact the Wilmot Proviso as to all present or future territories of the Union, we should have had just the same didoes cut up by the chivalry that we have witnessed, and with no more damage to the Union.
Cut Dirt (American), or Cut
One's Stick, Lucky, etc., verbal
phr. (common).—To make off;
to escape. To cut dirt is
clearly an allusion to the throwing
up of mud and dust by a
horse's hoofs in fast trotting.
Originally, to cut one's stick
refers to the cutting of a staff
from a hedge or tree on the occasion
of a journey Cut over
and cut away, though vulgarly
colloquial in the nineteenth, were
in literary use in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. A
curious and noteworthy parallel
is found in Zechariah xi. 10, where
the 'cutting of a stick' is described
as the symbol of breaking a
friendly covenant. Cut one's
stick is sometimes elaborated
into amputate one's mahogany
(q. v.). Cut one's lucky is a
simple reference to a 'lucky'
escape. A Latin equivalent of
cut one's stick is to be found
in Juvenal's Collige sarcinulas
('collect the bags'). For synonyms,
see Amputate. To cut
one's lucky also signifies to die.
1829. Negro Song [quoted in S. J., and C., p. 287]. He jump up fo' sartin—he cut dirt and run, While Sambo follow arter wid his 'tum, tum, tum.'
1836. C. Dickens, Pickwick Papers (about 1827), p. 79 (ed. 1857). Hold still, sir; wot's the use o' runnin' arter a man as has made his lucky, and got to t'other end of the Borough by this time.
1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. xl. 'And now that the nag has got his wind again,' said Mr. Chuckster, rising in a graceful manner, 'I'm afraid I must cut my stick.'
1841. Punch, vol. I., p. 136. He [James II.] is the only English sovereign who may be said to have amputated his bludgeon, which, if we were speaking of an ordinary man and not a monarch, we should have rendered by the familiar phrase of cut his stick.
1841. Comic Almanack, p. 278. As sune as ve arived at the sumat had a Werry hextensif vew off Prinse lewy a cuttin his unlukky, folowd by his folowers at Hi pressure spede.
1843. W. M. Thackeray, Lyra Hibernica. 'The Battle of Limerick.' . . . the best use Tommy made Of his famous battle blade, Was to cut his own stick from the Shannon shore.
1851-61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 150. A man got me to go for some in a orchard, and told me how to manage; but I cut my lucky in a minute
1853. Western Scenes. Now you cut dirt, and don't let me see you here again for a coon's age, you hear?
1855. J. Richardson, Recollections of Last Half Century, vol. II., p. 172. In less than half an hour he swallowed the whole undiluted contents of the bottle, and having done so cut his lucky, and retired.
ante 1871. Border Adventures, p. 231. Now, I say, old hoss, if you don't hurry up and cut dirt like streak-lightnin', this child goes arter you, and you look out for a windin' sheet, you hear?
1880. Punch's Almanack, p. 3.
