cut
kʌt
One Blade Divides a Cake, a Budget, and the Power
The picture A blade presses down and splits one thing into two. A line appears where it was whole, and the thing comes apart along that line. JOIN puts separate things together; CUT splits a whole thing apart.
Where the picture shows up in cut
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divide it up
Could you cut the cake into eight pieces?
kʊd juː kʌt ðə keɪk ˈɪntuː eɪt ˈpiːsɪz
Could I get the cake in eight slices?
A knife travelling across a cake, leaving slices behind.
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the skin is opened
I cut my finger on the lid this morning.
aɪ kʌt maɪ ˈfɪŋɡər ɒn ðə lɪd ðɪs ˈmɔːnɪŋ
I nicked my finger on the lid this morning.
A sharp edge drawing a red line across a fingertip.
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trim the amount down
We had to cut the budget by ten percent.
wiː hæd tuː kʌt ðə ˈbʌdʒɪt baɪ ten pərˈsent
We had to bring the budget down by ten percent.
The end of a long bar snipped clean off.
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sever what was connected
The storm cut the power to the whole building.
ðə stɔːrm kʌt ðə ˈpaʊər tuː ðə hoʊl ˈbɪldɪŋ
The storm knocked out power to the whole building.
A taut line snapping apart in the middle.
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take out what isn't needed
Let's cut the last slide, we're out of time.
lets kʌt ðə lɑːst slaɪd wɪr aʊt əv taɪm
Let's drop the last slide, we're short on time.
The last page of a printout scissored away.
All of it in one picture
CUT is a blade drawing a line through something whole. Put it to a cake and you get slices; put it to skin and you get a wound; put it to a number and you get a reduction; put it to a connected line and you get a blackout; put it to a script and you get a deletion. Wherever cut appears, one thing has been split and a part of it comes away.