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Glite Dictionary
to cut up rough

to cut up rough

9.8
Act in a violent or aggressive way and cause trouble
  • phrasal verb
  • Informal
translation icon : comportarse agresivamente
  • If the meeting goes on much longer, I expect someone will cut up rough and demand to leave.

Examples

  • He tends to cut up rough at parties when he's had too much to drink.

  • When the police arrived, the crowd started to cut up rough and refused to leave the area.

  • I was pleased to hear that, judging from the sound of it, my intended bridegroom was cutting up rough, despite his apparent lack of objection earlier.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Nevertheless, it will be a much easier format for Obama to show his Magic Negro charm, unless the audience decides for some reason it wants to cut up rough with him.

    Blog text (14)

  • So, if the Dems are proposing to cut off this chance and thus breaching precedent, it's hardly to be wondered at that the GOP cut up rough.

    Blog text (1)

Synonyms

to run roughshod
vsto cut up rough
6 8.4

To act without care for other people or their rights

behaves aggressively in sudden disruptive ways rather than ongoing disregard
to ride roughshod
vsto cut up rough
1 8.8

Treat people badly and ignore their feelings or rights

is sudden aggressive troublemaking rather than sustained harsh treatment

How Aggressive

assault
  • Specialized
378 4.5
attack
∞ 1.4
to cut up rough
  • Informal
9.8
to act up
  • Informal
28 4.8
to misbehave
37 2.8

Surface Forms

cut up rough infinitive
cut up rough past
cut up rough past participle
cutting up rough present participle
cuts up rough third person singular

Morphology

cut + up + rough

The aggressive sense is partially recoverable because 'rough' clearly signals violence/toughness and 'up' can act as an intensifier, so a learner might infer a meaning like 'become rough or aggressive'. However, 'cut up' as a unit is variable and colloquial, and the precise idiomatic phrasing 'cut up rough' is not a fully predictable compositional combination of the parts, making it only partially transparent to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Cut up rough may come from the image of someone cut up—acting wildly or making a mess—and being rough, like a person who suddenly starts to fight. So, the phrase now means 'to behave aggressively or cause trouble'.