Cutthroat - Wiktionary

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• Beginning
• 1 English Toggle English subsection
  • 1.1 Alternative forms
  • 1.2 Etymology
  • 1.3 Pronunciation
  • 1.4 Noun
    • 1.4.1 Derived terms
    • 1.4.2 Translations
  • 1.5 Adjective
    • 1.5.1 Translations
  • 1.6 Related terms

• Entry
• Discussion

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In other projects Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wiktionary, the free dictionary See also: cut-throat

English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:cutthroatWikipedia

Alternative forms

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• cut-throat, cut throat

Etymology

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From cut +‎ throat.

Pronunciation

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• IPA(key): /ˈkʌtθɹoʊt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

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cutthroat (countable and uncountable, plural cutthroats)

1. A murderer who slits the throats of victims.
2. An unscrupulous, ruthless or unethical person.
   • 1948, Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms, Part One, 1: The jail had not housed a white criminal in over four years, and there is seldom a prisoner of any kind, the Sheriff being a lazy no-good, prone to take his ease with a bottle of liquor, and let trouble-makers and thieves, even the most dangerous type of cutthroats, run free and wild.
3. (uncountable) A three-player pocket billiards game where the object is to be the last player with at least one ball still on the table.
4. (linguistics) Ellipsis of cutthroat compound (“an agentive-instrumental verb-noun compound word”).
   • 2015 May 22, Stan Carey, “The Kick-butt World of Cutthroat Compounds”, in Slate Lexicon Valley‎[1]:Children go through a phase of compound acquisition in which they invent cutthroats spontaneously before dropping the habit again.

Derived terms

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• cutthroat razor
• cutthroat trout

Translations

[edit] murderer

Azerbaijani: başkəsən Belarusian: галаварэ́з m (halavaréz) Bulgarian: главоре́з (bg) m (glavoréz) Czech: hrdlořez m French: coupe-jarret (fr) m Georgian: ყასაბი (ka) (q̇asabi) German: Halsabschneider (de) m Italian: tagliagole (it) m Kazakh: баскесер (baskeser) Latvian: rīkļurāvējs m Polish: nożownik (pl) m, rzezimieszek (pl) m Portuguese: degolador m Russian: головоре́з (ru) m (golovoréz) Slovak: hrdlorez m Spanish: degollador m Swedish: mördare (sv) c Ukrainian: головорі́з m (holovoríz), горлорі́з m (horloríz)

unscrupulous, ruthless or unethical person

Bulgarian: главоре́з (bg) m (glavoréz) German: Halsabschneider (de) m Polish: bandyta (pl) m, zbir (pl) m, rzezimieszek (pl) m Russian: головоре́з (ru) m (golovoréz) Spanish: canalla (es)

Adjective

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cutthroat (comparative more cutthroat, superlative most cutthroat)

1. Involving the cutting of throats.
2. Of or relating to a card game where everyone plays for him or herself rather than playing with a partner. He found that playing cutthroat Spades was much more difficult than playing with a partner.
3. Ruthlessly competitive, dog-eat-dog. Law is a cutthroat business, you always have to look out to see who is trying to outdo you.
   • 2010, Kate Stevens, Freak Nation, page 159:More specifically, Scrabblers are diehard, competitive, and occasionally cutthroat players who treat the game like it's chess or baseball...
   • 2023 December 1, Evelynn Kersting, “GAMES AND TIME”, in University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee‎[2], page 9‎[3], archived from the original on 6 June 2025:While these esports are often framed as battles of mental strategies and mechanical skills, how players juggle their hundreds, or thousands, of simultaneously ticking clocks and timers defines their ability to succeed in cutthroat competitions.

Translations

[edit] very competitive, dog-eat-dog

German: mörderisch (de), halsabschneiderisch, rücksichtslos (de), hemmungslos (de) Hungarian: gyilkos (hu), öldöklő (hu), késhegyre menő (hu) Spanish: canallesco Swedish: mördande (sv)

Related terms

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• cutthroat eel

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=cutthroat&oldid=88355643" Categories:

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