cut it fine
English
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Verb
editcut it fine (third-person singular simple present cuts it fine, present participle cutting it fine, simple past and past participle cut it fine)
- (idiomatic, UK) To achieve something at the last possible moment, or with no margin for error.
- 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:
- ‘No, — I hadn’t time. I was due at the station, — I was cutting it pretty fine as it was.’
- (idiomatic, UK) To be stingy.
- 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
- “O stop, stop,” cried the Mole in ecstacies: “This is too much!”
“Do you really think so?” enquired the Rat seriously. “It’s only what I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always telling me that I’m a mean beast and cut it very fine!”
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut, it, fine.