cut someone or something up
Fig. to criticize someone or something severely. Jane is such a gossip. She was really cutting Mrs. Jones up. The professor really cut up my essay.
cut someone up
Fig. to make someone laugh. That comedian's routine really cut me up. Tommy's rude noises cut the whole class up, but not the teacher.
cut someone up
Fig. to make someone laugh. That comedian's routine really cut me up. Tommy's rude noises cut the whole class up, but not the teacher.
cut up (about someone or something)
Sl. emotionally upset about someone or something. She was all cut up about her divorce. You could see how cut up she was.
cut up
1. Divide into smaller parts, break the continuity of, as in These meetings have cut up my whole day. [c. 1800]
2. Severely censure or criticize, as in The reviewer cut up the book mercilessly. [Mid-1700s]
3. be cut up. Be distressed or saddened, as in I was terribly cut up when she left. [Mid-1800s] Charles Dickens used this idiom in A Christmas Carol (1844): "Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event."
4. Behave in a playful, comic, or boisterous way, as in On the last night of camp the children usually cut up. [Late 1800s]
5. cut up rough. Act in a rowdy, angry, or violent way, as in After a beer or two the boys began to cut up rough. [Slang; first half of 1800s]