cutthroat
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
An unscrupulous, ruthless or unethical person.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhtthrohtSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkʌtθɹoʊt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An unscrupulous, ruthless or unethical person.
A murderer who slits the throats of victims.
uncountable
A three-player pocket billiards game where the object is to be the last player with at least one ball still on the table.
adjective
Involving the cutting of throats.
Of or relating to a card game where everyone plays for him or herself rather than playing with a partner.
Ruthlessly competitive, dog-eat-dog.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An unscrupulous, ruthless or unethical person.
Used this way, cutthroat is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.