cut-and-dried
or cut-and-dry
prepared or settled in advance; not needing much thought or discussion: a cut-and-dried decision.
lacking in originality or spontaneity; routine; boring: a lecture that was cut-and-dried.
Origin of cut-and-dried
1Words Nearby cut-and-dried
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use cut-and-dried in a sentence
The woman felt a certain fainting of purpose at the cut-and-dried programme presented in that dry manner by the dry old man.
The Open Question | Elizabeth RobinsOnce more she was all for luxury and ease and calmness, for the pleasant, soothing, cut-and-dried thing.
The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig | David Graham PhillipsIt may be that our feelings will thus be more interesting than a cut-and-dried treatise of the land and its inhabitants.
The Land of the Black Mountain | Reginald WyonThe councils were no longer the orderly conferences of savants over cut-and-dried maps.
Vikings of the Pacific | Agnes C. LautIn such matters an ounce of personal experience is worth a pound of cut-and-dried theory.
The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 | Various
Other Idioms and Phrases with cut-and-dried
Ready-made, predetermined and not changeable. For example, The procedure is not quite cut and dried—there's definitely room for improvisation. This expression originally alluded to herbs for sale in a shop, as opposed to fresh, growing herbs. [c. 1900]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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