cookie-cutter
verb1
Idiomatic, Uncommon To produce, design, or approach something in a formulaic, mass-produced or unoriginal manner, often ensuring all the outputs are identical.
- Ever since USA Today arrived with its bar graphs, its color-coded weather maps (red means hot, boys and girls!), its stick-figure journalism, its pages cookie-cuttered by brights and factoids and its expert trivializing of everything from wars to nutrition, the craft of newspapering meant nothing more than making sure the percentages took up an accurate slice of the pie chart.1991, Paul Daugherty, “The Write Stuff, What A Shame Nobody Wants To Read It Anymore”, in Cincinnati Magazine, volume 24, number 11, page 58:
- in arts funding, and possibly cookie-cuttering the program in other Blue Fish locations across the country.1995, Alan Reder, 75 Best Business Practices for Socially Responsible Companies, page 202:
4 more examples
- I agree but they did not do this out of the goodness of their hearts. They did to make money. They cookie cuttered the bikes and quality be dammed.1995 August 18, David DeCoster, “"HOG"”, in rec.motorcycles.harley (Usenet):
- Insofar as we got cookie-cuttered by social systems, the control paradigm designed the shapes.1996, Denise Breton, Christopher Largent, The Paradigm Conspiracy, How Our Systems of Government, Church, School, and Culture Violate Our Human Potential, page 141:
- It ain't cheap. It cost me several hundred dollars more than if I had just cookie cuttered the plywood. Admittedly, my layout is a somewhat larger layout than the 4x8's WS uses as an example. Make sure and do a rough materials estimate before you start, and are willing to pay the convenience cost.1999 August 27, Dale Wiese, “Woodlands New Layout Method”, in rec.models.railroad (Usenet):
- cookie-cuttered the dash, and forehead prints from who knows how many people buttered the interior of the windshield.2001, Zyzzyva, Incorporated (publisher), Zyzzyva, page 47:
- Related terms
- one-size-fits-all