Divide into smaller parts, break the continuity of, as in These meetings have cut up my whole day. [c. 1800]
Severely censure or criticize, as in The reviewer cut up the book mercilessly. [Mid-1700s]
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.”
Behave in a playful, comic, or boisterous way, as in On the last night of camp the children usually cut up. [Late 1800s]
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]