"Cut and run" -- How do you mean?

Depending on how you view the Iraq War, the phrase "cut and run" can mean "turn tail and save your own skin" or "prudently quit fighting in a hopeless situation." Let us consult some reference sources to draw our own conclusions about the true meaning.

In Everyday Phrases: Their Origins and Meanings, Neil Ewart traced cut and run back to the late 17th century, when sailors would often "threaten to cut someone's painter" (the rope fixed to a ship's bow to make it stay fast) in order to "prevent them doing any mischief."

"Two centuries later," Ewart added, "to get rid of anyone, sailors would tell them 'to cut and run,' meaning to cut their painter, and make off." This was the nautical equivalent of "Buzz off!" or "Take a hike!"

Ewart explains a second meaning of the expression, which "when used earlier also meant to sever a connection, but to do so in order to escape, such as when a ship was at anchor and about to be attacked by an approaching enemy. The anchor 'cable' in those days was made of hemp, so it could be cut."

It is this second meaning that Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English paraphrased as "depart promptly; decamp hurriedly." Partridge dated the colloquialism from around or before 1861 and stated that it is derived from nautical jargon.

The New Dictionary of American Slang (edited by Robert L. Chapman) placed the expression within the "middle 1800s" and defined it as "to leave; depart, especially hastily." The illustration given was "If you hear a whistle, cut and run at once," with the explanation that the meaning came from "the cutting of the anchor cable in the swift departure of a ship."

Richard A. Spears, in NTC's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions, said that cut and run meant "to stop what one is doing and flee," with two illustrations: "The cops were coming, so we cut and run," and "At the first warning, we cut and run."

A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles (edited by Sir William A. Craige and James R. Hulbert) said that the original nautical sense was "to cut moorings, and make sail at once" and that the derivative colloquial expression meant "to depart in haste."

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (edited by J. E. Lighter) added "to desert" to the meanings "to clear our precipitately; flee." These last two sources provided a number of illustrations, among them:

"His Ship was in reach of the Fort, who fired several shot [sic] into her, which obliged them to cut and run out of the reach of the Guns." (1714, Boston News-Letter).

"Go to jail, or as the phrase is 'cut and run'." (Hugh Henry Brackenridge, American Chivalry, 1792).

"'There's cut and run,' cried the sailor … 'That's what you'll learn to do, my joker, before you have been two cruises at sea." (Frederick Marryat, Peter Simple and the Three Cutters, 1833).

"Needle-nose, you cut and ran away with the rent from the last house you were in, in Royal Street." (D. Corcoran, Pickings from the Portfolio of the Reporter of the New Orleans Pickayune, 1846).

"If you know when you're well off, you'd better cut and run." (Life in Rochester, 1848).

"There's always the small minority who cut and run the first time they hear a shot in anger." (Wild Blue, edited by John F. Loosbrock and Richard M. Skinner, 1953).