cut and dry

A form of cut and dried — Simple, straightforward, clear, or certain.

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Meanings

adjectivecut and dry (not comparable)
  1. alternativenot comparableuncommonAlternative form of cut and dried.

    Nowadays, thanks to the irrepressible rise of content marketing, SEO's cut and dry quantitative approach is evolving to incorporate its opposite number: quality.

    2013 May 10, Jonathan Piggins, “Is Google's love affair with content marketing usurping SEO?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
    1 more example

    Just because it is all cut and dry. Just because it is ready-made. Just because it lies there in reliable, convenient and logical propositions. The moment you appropriate truth in such a shape you appropriate a form. You cannot cut and dry truth. You cannot accept truth ready-made without it ceasing to nourish the soul as the truth.

    1883, Henry Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World
Cite this entry
APA

cut and dry. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cut%20and%20dry

MLA

“cut and dry.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cut%20and%20dry. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cut and dry,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cut%20and%20dry.

Source: cut and dry on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.