cutting up

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.
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.
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.
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.

See all 14 meanings of cut up