cut the mustard | Idiomator

Meaning: (intransitive,idiomatic)Toachievetheexpectedstandard; to beeffectiveorgoodenough; tosuffice.Synonyms:beup to par,beup to scratch,beup to snuff,cut it,hack it,make the cut,make the grade,measure up,pass musterGive me the bigger hammer. This little one just doesn’tcut the mustard.1907,O. Henry[pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Cupid à la Carte”, inHeart of the West, New York, N.Y.:Doubleday, Page & CompanyforReview of Reviews Co.,→OCLC,page163:By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choice places wherein to feed. So I looked around and found a proposition that exactlycut the mustard. I found a restaurant tent just opened up by an outfit that had drifted in on the tail of the boom.1940March 21,Fred Cummings, committee member, “Statement of Albert S. Goss[Former Land Bank Commissioner, Farm Credit Administration, Washington, D.C.]—Resumed”, inFarm Credit Legislation: Hearing before theCommittee on Agriculture,Committee on Agriculture,House of Representatives, Seventy-sixthCongress, Third Session on H.R. 8748[…], Washington, D.C.:United States Government Printing Office,→OCLC,page194:[I]f a man gets a loan and over a period of years he has demonstrated that he cannotcut the mustard, how is he going to demonstrate it in a period of 12 months?

Examples:

EN: But I couldn't cut the mustard so the guy gave me the gate.
ES: Pero no pude cortar la mostaza... entonces el tipo me dio la puerta.
EN: The truth doesn't cut the mustard with everyone.
ES: Tiene malos antecedentes. Y la verdad no es igual para todo el mundo.
EN: She wrote, "Boss Finley can't cut the mustard."
ES: Escribió: "El Jefe Finley no está a la altura".
EN: "Miss Lucy is available to any punk's got $5 and can cut the mustard."
ES: "Lucy está libre para un tipejo con 5 dólares y que esté a la altura".
EN: There's a law that says when old folks can't cut the mustard any more, you can make 'em let go, whether they like it or not.
ES: Hay una ley que dice que cuando los viejos ya no dan para más puedes obligarles a irse, les guste o no.
EN: Maybe he couldn't cut the mustard.
ES: Tal vez el fallo se encontrara cerca de casa.
EN: That he comes with grade A references and has cut the mustard just fine around here for one solid year.
ES: Que tiene buenas referencias y lleva un año aquí sin problemas.
EN: I'm more interested in somebody who can cut the mustard.
ES: Yo prefiero a alguien que saque las castañas del fuego.
EN: Guess you couldn't cut the mustard?
ES: Bueno, ya sabes de dónde saca Abraham la mostaza.
EN: And if you don't wanna be a man, if you don't wanna cut the mustard crawl out of here right now with your tail between your legs because we don't want you!
ES: Si no quieren ser hombres, si no quieren rendir satisfactoriamente salgan arrastrándose de aquí con la cola entre las piernas iporque no los queremos a ustedes!
EN: Lead-ins are for guys who can't cut the mustard.
ES: Eso es para los que no pueden.
EN: Can't cut the mustard!
ES: Te falta coraje!
EN: If you're too old to cut the mustard, you can still lick the jar, right?
ES: Si estás muy viejo para cortar la mostaza, lame la jarra.
EN: I don't think this puppy is going to cut the mustard.
ES: Este cachorrito de motor no sirve para nada.
EN: But I wonder if that rabbit will be able to cut the mustard.
ES: Pero me pregunto si ese conejo podrá lograrlo.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).