# cut to the chase

Pronunciation: US/UK say "kut tuh thuh CHAYS" /ˌkʌt tə ðə ˈtʃeɪs/; AUS say "kut tuu thuh CHAYS"

## Idiom

1. To leave out unnecessary detail and get straight to the important point.
   - Simple: To stop wasting time and talk about the most important thing right away.
   - _After ten minutes of small talk, the manager finally cut to the chase and announced the layoffs._
   - _Cut to the chase: do we have the budget for this project or not?_

## Origin

This comes from cinema, where to "cut" (edit a film) meant getting straight to the exciting part. A similar idea also appears earlier in Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Tale" (c.1400), "And shortly forth this tale for to chace," meaning to cut a long story short.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/cut-to-the-chase (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).