cut someone off

[navi tasan]

Could one say:
1) My best friend cut me off.
instead of:
1a) My best friend cut all ties with me.
He ended his friendship with me.

I have seen 'cut off' used in this way, but I think it was always about someone being excluded from a group (e. g. All my friends cut me off)

Could one say:
2) A big drunk fellow cut me off in the line.
instead of:
2a) A big drunk fellow cut the line in front of me.

Gratefully,
Navi

 

[emsr2d2]

Absent any other context, I would take "My best friend cut me off" to mean that they hung up the phone in the middle of a conversation with me. We sometimes use the phrase in a financial context to mean to stop giving someone money. Imagine a (spoiled) teenager saying "I can't go away with my friends this summer. My dad's cut me off".

It definitely doesn't work in the context of a queue (line). Sentence 2a uses the wrong word order. It should be "A big drunk fellow cut in front of me in the line (queue)".

 

[emsr2d2]

In BrE, you'll hear "My friend Helen's blanking me", meaning she's refusing to speak to or acknowledge me. A few decades ago, you might have heard "She's sent me to Coventry". "Send someone to Coventry" meant ostracising someone - refusing to speak to them and effectively behaving as if they didn't exist.