cut down to size

present singular third person cuts down to size · participle present cutting down to size

1. idiomaticinformalTo humble or humiliate, especially someone or something that is perceived as overly domineering or too proud.

   The system cut everybody down to size. I felt small and vulnerable.

   2003, Gordon Donnell, Starliner, page 10

   2 more examples

   The war was seen by the Foreign Office as a golden opportunity to undo the UN Partition Resolution and cut Israel down to size'.

   2000, Efraim Karsh, Fabricating Israeli History: The "new Historians", page 152

   If Arthur Oliphant's aim had been to cut them down to size, it worked: photographs taken at Somerville College in 1888 show Bamba and her sister looking diffident.

   2015, Anita Anand, Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, page 87

   Synonyms: bring down to size, knock down to size, trim down to size, whittle down to size

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut, down, size.

   As the plastic moves between the stationary and rotating blades it is cut down to size.

   2007, Vannessa Goodship, Introduction to Plastics Recycling, page 55

   1 more example

   There is, however, another general approach to cutting the potential client population down to size: establish criteria, grounded in the Bank's basic strategy, that restrict the range of enterprises that the Bank tries to reach.

   1995, Sidney Winter, Small and Medium-size Enterprises in Economic Development