Meaning
To make a hasty departure, abandoning whatever one was doing rather than seeing it through; to flee a situation quickly. Often carries a note of criticism, implying premature or self-interested departure. Informal and usually disapproving, suggesting cowardice or irresponsibility in leaving. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The phrase is a shortening of earlier forms such as 'cut and run away' and 'cut and run off'. The earliest known use of the exact wording is from the Boston News Letter of 1704 ('Cap. Vaughn rode by said Ship, but cut & run'), and a seafaring antecedent appears in Spenser's 'Faerie Queene' (1590) with a ship that 'cut away upon the yielding wave'. A popular nautical theory holds that 'cut' refers to a ship cutting her anchor cable to escape quickly rather than weighing anchor, a sense defined in David Steel's 1794 'Elements and Practice of Rigging and Seamanship'; the earliest citations are indeed maritime, but The Phrase Finder judges the rope-cutting derivation unproven, since 'cut' may simply allude to cutting through or away, as in the later American 'cut class'. Dickens used 'cut off', 'cut away', and 'cut and run' side by side, showing the variants coexisted into the nineteenth century.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- cut and run away
- cut and run for it
- cut and run off
- cutting and running
Usage Examples
- When the auditors arrived, the tenant cut and ran, leaving three months of rent unpaid.
- Investors feared the fund would cut and run at the first sign of volatility.
- Rather than cut and run, the coach finished the season and resigned with honour.