cut the mustard
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English
Etymology
From cut (“to exhibit (a quality)”) + the + mustard (“(originally US slang) something adding spice or zest to a situation; something setting the standard”).[1]
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /kʌt ðə ˈmʌstəd/
- (General American) IPA(key): /kʌt ðə ˈmʌstəɹd/
Audio (General Australian): (file) - Rhymes: -ʌstəd
- Hyphenation: cut the mus‧tard
Verb
cut the mustard (third-person singular simple present cuts the mustard, present participle cutting the mustard, simple past and past participle cut the mustard)
- (intransitive, idiomatic) To achieve the expected standard; to be effective or good enough; to suffice.
- Synonyms: be up to par, be up to scratch, be up to snuff, cut it, hack it, make the cut, make the grade, measure up, pass muster
- Give me the bigger hammer. This little one just doesn’t cut the mustard.
- 1907, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Cupid à la Carte”, in Heart of the West, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company for Review of Reviews Co., →OCLC, page 163:
- By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed. So I looked around and found a proposition that exactly cut the mustard. I found a restaurant tent just opened up by an outfit that had drifted in on the tail of the boom.
- 1940 March 21, Fred Cummings, committee member, “Statement of Albert S. Goss —Resumed”, in Farm Credit Legislation: Hearing before the Committee on Agriculture, Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Seventy-sixth Congress, Third Session on H.R. 8748 , Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 194:
- [I]f a man gets a loan and over a period of years he has demonstrated that he cannot cut the mustard, how is he going to demonstrate it in a period of 12 months?
Usage notes
- This idiom usually appears in negative polarity contexts: “can’t cut the mustard”, “doesn’t cut the mustard”, and so on.
Translations
to achieve the expected standard; to be effective or good enough — see also suffice
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References
- ^ “to cut the mustard” under “mustard, n. and adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “cut the mustard, phrase”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
- Michael Quinion (created August 1, 1998, last updated January 22, 2000) “Cut the mustard”, in World Wide Words.
- Michael Quinion (2004) “Cut the mustard”, in Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books in association with Penguin Books, →ISBN.