A cookie cutter in American English and biscuit cutter in Commonwealth English is a tool to cut out cookie

Cookie

In the United States and Canada, a cookie is a small, flat, baked treat, usually containing fat, flour, eggs and sugar. In most English-speaking countries outside North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have...

/biscuit dough

Dough

Dough is a paste made out of any cereals or leguminous crops by mixing flour with a small amount of water and/or other liquid. This process is a precursor to making a wide variety of foodstuffs, particularly breads and bread-based items , flatbreads, noodles, pastry, and similar items)...

 in a particular shape. They are often used for seasonal occasions when well-known decorative shapes are desired, or for large batches of cookies where simplicity and uniformity are required. Cookie cutters have also been used for, among other uses, cutting and shaping tea sandwich

Tea sandwich

A tea sandwich is a small prepared sandwich meant to be eaten at afternoon teatime to stave off hunger until the main meal.The tea sandwich may take a number of different forms, but should be easy to handle, and should be capable of being eaten in two bites. It may be a long, narrow sandwich, a...

es.

Types and variations

• Cutout: Most commonly made of copper, tin, stainless steel, aluminium, or plastic. Cutouts are the simplest of the cookie cutters; the cutter is pressed into cookie dough that has been rolled flat to produce the shape of the cutter's outline.
• Detail imprint: Commonly made of copper, tin, or plastic. Detail imprints are similar to cutout cookie cutters, except that detail imprints also mark the surface of the dough.
• Cookie mould: Usually made of wood, ceramic, or plastic. Springerle
  Springerle
  Springerle is a type of German biscuit with an embossed design made by pressing a mold onto rolled dough and allowing the impression to dry before baking. This preserves the detail of the surface pattern. They are most commonly seen during the Christmas season.The name springerle means "little...
  
   moulds are the oldest examples of such. A cookie mould typically has an ornate design debossed into the surface; the mould is pressed into the cookie dough to produce an embossed design.
• Cookie press
  Cookie press
  A cookie press is a device for making pressed cookies such as spritzgebäck. It consists of a cylinder with a plunger on one end which is used to extrude cookie dough through a small hole at the other end. Typically the cookie press has interchangeable plates with holes in different shapes, such as...
  
  : Automated or hand operated press used to make large batches of cookies quickly. The cookie dough is extruded onto the baking sheet in ornate shapes that would otherwise be too difficult or time-consuming to create by hand.

Alternative definition

"Cookie cutter," when used as an adjective, is defined as a "lack of originality or distinction", a reference to the uniformity that results from the use of a cookie cutter. An example might be a reference to a suburban subdivision's housing, all looking pretty much alike, as "cookie cutter homes".