View synonyms for

cut-and-dried

Or cut-and-dry

[kuht-n-drahyd]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

adjective

prepared or settled in advance; not needing much thought or discussion.
a cut-and-dried decision.
lacking in originality or spontaneity; routine; boring.
a lecture that was cut-and-dried.

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Word History and Origins

Origin of cut and dried¹

First recorded in 1700–10

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Idioms and Phrases

Ready-made, predetermined and not changeable. For example, The procedure is not quite cut and dried—there's definitely room for improvisation. This expression originally alluded to herbs for sale in a shop, as opposed to fresh, growing herbs. [c. 1900]

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

The latter is a novel that should have been marketed as a cut-and-dried narco thriller but was instead positioned as an overdue humanization of the undocumented experience at the Mexican border.

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Because there isn’t a cut-and-dried solution in the context of “Squid Game 2,” it demands conversation, which can be important in and of itself.

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The complex interactions of fluid and soft matter physics prove challenging to simplify into cut-and-dried formulae.

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She has taken a cut-and-dried case based on overwhelming evidence and made it a long shot to be tried this year, when it matters most.

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That’s because of two aspects that are anything but cut-and-dried: copyright law and a new technology.

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cut-and-cover cut and fill

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