cut down to size

English

Alternative forms

• bring down to size, knock down to size, trim down to size, whittle down to size

Verb

cut down to size (third-person singular simple present cuts down to size, present participle cutting down to size, simple past and past participle cut down to size)

1. To humble or humiliate, especially someone or something that is perceived as overly domineering or too proud.
   • 2000, Efraim Karsh, Fabricating Israeli History: The "new Historians", page 152:

     The war was seen by the Foreign Office as a golden opportunity to undo the UN Partition Resolution and cut Israel down to size'.

   • 2003, Gordon Donnell, Starliner, page 10:

     The system cut everybody down to size. I felt small and vulnerable.

   • 2015, Anita Anand, Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, page 87:

     If Arthur Oliphant's aim had been to cut them down to size, it worked: photographs taken at Somerville College in 1888 show Bamba and her sister looking diffident.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut,‎ down,‎ size.
   • 1995, Sidney Winter, Small and Medium-size Enterprises in Economic Development:

     There is, however, another general approach to cutting the potential client population down to size: establish criteria, grounded in the Bank's basic strategy, that restrict the range of enterprises that the Bank tries to reach.

   • 2007, Vannessa Goodship, Introduction to Plastics Recycling, page 55:

     As the plastic moves between the stationary and rotating blades it is cut down to size.

See also

• bring low