is to shorten. “Cut short all intermission” (Macbeth, iv. 3). To cut it short means to bring to an end what you are doing or saying.
His life was cut short. He died prematurely. The allusion is to Atʹropos, one of the three Parcæ, cutting the thread of life spun by her sister Cloʹtho.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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