Word.ws English Dictionary

cut up

cut up verb: to cut upward.

Verb

cut up (third-person singular simple present cuts up, present participle cutting up, simple past and past participle cut up)

  1. (intransitive, literally) To cut upward.
  2. (transitive) To cut into smaller pieces, parts, or sections.
    • With a little practice, you can cut up a whole chicken yourself for frying.
    • The locomotive involved in the derailment of the 4.33 a.m. train from Ruabon to Barmouth on the night of October 6, due to the bursting of the banks of the Shropshire Union Canal near Llangollen, was 2-6-0 No. 6315; the position into which the locomotive fell so completely defied all attempts to...1946 January and February, “Notes and News: Locomotive Notes: G.W.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 55
  3. (informal, transitive) To lacerate; to wound by multiple lacerations; to injure or damage by cutting, or as if by cutting.
    • The attackers cut him up pretty bad.
    • I once cut a guy up because he was making advances to a kid that I was very much in love with.1976 February 14, Tommi Avicolli, Miguel Pinero, “Miguel Pinero: Prisoner, Playwright, God”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 33, page 16
  4. (idiomatic, transitive) To distress mentally or emotionally.
    • And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event[…]1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the page number)”, in A Christmas Carol. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC
  5. (dated, idiomatic, transitive) To severely criticize or censure; to subject to hostile criticism.
    • The reviewer cut up the book mercilessly.
    • “I didn’t mean any offence—beg pardon—hang it, you cut up quite savage,” said Pen’s astonished interlocutor.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 51, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
  6. (idiomatic, intransitive) To behave like a clown or jokester (a cut-up); to misbehave; to act in a playful, comical, boisterous, or unruly manner to elicit laughter, attention, etc.
    • We need to talk about Johnny's tendency to cut up in class.
    • I had been cutting up some caper or other—I think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other, was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,—my mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney...1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 4, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 28
  7. (Ireland, UK, idiomatic, transitive) To move aggressively in front of another vehicle while driving.
    • If you are a victim of Road Rage, this normally means you may have inadvertently cut someone up on the road, or he may perceive that you have cut him up.2005, Richard Hunter, Righteous Indignation: Driving Psychology, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 42
    • The third gave an account of losing her temper in traffic, after being cut up by another driver, then bursting into tears.2006, Jane M. Ussher, Managing the Monstrous Feminine: Regulating the Reproductive Body, Routledge, →ISBN, page 170
    Synonyms:
    cut off
  8. (intransitive) To disintegrate; to break into pieces.
    • The first match in the magnificent new national stadium was a Euro 2012 qualifier between Romania and France that soon descended into farce as the pitch cut up and players struggled to maintain their footing. Amorebieta at times seemed to be paying homage to that game, but nobody else seemed to...2012 May 9, Jonathan Wilson, “Europa League: Radamel Falcao's Atlético Madrid rout Athletic Bilbao”, in the Guardian
  9. (dated, slang) To divide into portions well or badly; to have the property left at one's death turn out well or poorly when divided among heirs, legatees, etc.
    • When I die, may I cut up as well as Morgan Pendennis.1848, William Makepeace Thackery, The History of Pendennis
  10. (informal) Comprise a particular selection of runners.
    • The race has cut up badly with no real opposition to "Serendipity".

Adjective

cut up (comparative more cut up, superlative most cut up)

  1. Having been cut into smaller pieces.
    • Put the cut up vegetables in the pot.
  2. Wounded with multiple lacerations.
    • He is cut up pretty bad.
  3. (Australia, UK, idiomatic) Emotionally upset; mentally distressed.
    • She was seriously cut up over her dog disappearing.
  4. (informal, slang) Muscular and lean.
    • I go to the gym to get stronger and cut up.

cut up meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Sanskrit

cut up in Tamil

துண்டு துண்டாக்கு

cut up in Malayalam

upset, troubled, distressed
വിഷണ്ണ, മ്ലാനതയുള്ള, അസ്വസ്ഥമായ, ദുഃഖിതം, ദീനം, ദീനതയുള്ള

cut up in Sanskrit

to cut up, cut to pieces, bruise, pound
विदा vidā

Synonyms of cut up

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of cut up

Verb
third-person singular presentcuts up
present participlecutting up
past participlecut up
pastcut up
Adjective
comparativemore cut up
superlativemost cut up

Words formed from cut up

Questions about cut up

What does cut up mean?
Cut up means to cut upward.
What is cut up in Tamil?
Cut up in Tamil is துண்டு துண்டாக்கு. See Cut up meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is cut up?
Cut up can be a verb or an adjective.
What is the past tense of cut up?
The past tense of cut up is cut up.

Words near cut up in the dictionary

  1. cut to ribbons
  2. cut to the bone
  3. cut to the chase
  4. cut to the quick
  5. cut under
  6. cut up
  7. cut up nasty
  8. cut up rough
  9. cut up shapes
  10. cut up shines
  11. cut wind

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cut up (page history and authors); cut up (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cut up (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); विदा (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 cut up.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cut up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cut_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.