Dictionary

cut down to size en · VERB

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, informal) To humble or humiliate, especially someone or something that is perceived as overly domineering or too proud.
   • If Arthur Oliphant's aim had been to cut them down to size, it worked: photographs taken at Somerville College in 1888 show Bamba and her sister looking diffident. 2015, Anita Anand, Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, page 87:
   • The system cut everybody down to size. I felt small and vulnerable. 2003, Gordon Donnell, Starliner, page 10:
   • The war was seen by the Foreign Office as a golden opportunity to undo the UN Partition Resolution and cut Israel down to size'. 2000, Efraim Karsh, Fabricating Israeli History: The "new Historians", page 152:
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut, down, size.
   • As the plastic moves between the stationary and rotating blades it is cut down to size. 2007, Vannessa Goodship, Introduction to Plastics Recycling, page 55:
   • There is, however, another general approach to cutting the potential client population down to size: establish criteria, grounded in the Bank's basic strategy, that restrict the range of enterprises that the Bank tries to reach. 1995, Sidney Winter, Small and Medium-size Enterprises in Economic Development:

Forms

Relateds

bring low

Synonyms

trim down to size · knock down to size · whittle down to size · bring down to size