/kut"awf', -of'/ , n.
1. an act or instance of cutting off.
2. something that cuts off.
3. a road, passage, etc., that leaves another, usually providing a shortcut: Let's take the cutoff to Baltimore.
4. a new and shorter channel formed in a river by the water cutting across a bend in its course.
5. a point, time, or stage serving as the limit beyond which something is no longer effective, applicable, or possible.
6. cutoffs , Also, cut-offs . shorts made by cutting the legs off a pair of trousers, esp. jeans, above the knees and often leaving the cut edges ragged.
7. Accounting. a selected point at which records are considered complete for the purpose of settling accounts, taking inventory, etc.
8. Baseball. an infielder's interception of a ball thrown from the outfield in order to relay it to home plate or keep a base runner from advancing.
9. Mach. arrest of the steam moving the pistons of an engine, usually occurring before the completion of a stroke.
10. Electronics. (in a vacuum tube) the minimum grid potential preventing an anode current.
11. Rocketry. the termination of propulsion, either by shutting off the propellant flow or by stopping the combustion of the propellant.
adj.
12. being or constituting the limit or ending: a cutoff date for making changes.
[ 1735-45; n. use of v. phrase cut off ]