Note 256 — GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE.
Reading edition
Cut appears to have been an opprobrious term used by the vulgar when they scolded or abused each other. It occurs again, act v., sc. 2: "That lying cut is lost, that she is not swinged and beaten."
A horse is sometimes called Cut in our ancient writers, as in the "First Part of Henry IV.," act ii., sc. 1., and Falstaff says: "If I tell thee a lye, spit in my face, and call me horse." Cut is therefore probably used in the same sense as horse, to which it seems to have been synonymous. Several instances of the use of this term are collected by Mr Steevens, in his edition of Shakspeare; see vol. iv., p. 202.
It appears probable to me that the opprobrious epithet Cut arose from the practice of cutting the hair of convicted thieves; which was anciently the custom in England, as appears from the edicts of John de Northampton against adulterers, who thought, with Paulo Migante, that
"England ne'er would thrive, Till all the whores were burnt alive." —See Holinshed, vol. 9., 754, Ed. 1807.—O. G.