Dictionary

cut both ways en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (idiomatic) To have both benefits and drawbacks.
   • A redundant observation about Ben Fouhy: It's not easy being him. "No, not really. But that cuts both ways you know, that affords me the opportunities, the highs and lows, the heights and depths that perhaps other people don't ... experience." March 10 2012, New Zealand Herald, Michele Hewitson interview: Ben Fouhyhttps://web.archive.org/web/20131016033007/http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10791043
2. (idiomatic) To have implications for something as well as its counterpart.
   • Readers are invited at this point to listen to the pleasant sound of the recordings in LT [Lehman’s temperament], which can be found on this page. Together with the record value of MSS [Music Sameness of Scales], this makes a convincing case for Lehman’s hypothesis. But arguments, like a razor,(5) cut both ways: some lesser known temperament might achieve a better MSS than LT 2009 June, Emmanuel Amiot, “Discrete Fourier Transform and Bach’s Good Temperament”, in Music Theory Online, volume 15, number 2, →DOI:
   • […] It may be tempting to criticize my analogy because it assumes a case where one vote can actually influence the outcome. That would be fair, of course, but it would also cut both ways. / If you're vote can't be strategic because it is statistically meaningless, then neither can it be moral. / In which case both arguments - vote your conscience & vote your strategy - should be dumped in favor of a third: don't vote. 2016 November 4, Andrew Cohen, Sean II, “Time for Political Disruption”, in Bleeding Heart Libertarians, retrieved 09 Mar 2021, Comments:
   • This argument cuts both ways.
   • And the findings could cut both ways. / "It's certainly possible that an intruder was responsible for the murder, but I don't think that the DNA evidence proves it," said William C. Thompson […] Similarly, the findings don't implicate or exonerate anyone in the family. 2016 October 27, Charlie Brennan, Kevin Vaughan, “DNA in doubt: New analysis challenges DA's exoneration of Ramseys”, in Loveland Reporter Herald, archived from the original on 29 Oct 2016:
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut, both, ways.

Forms

Relateds

two-edged · double-edged · cruel mistress