cut up vs joke

cut up

verb
  • 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. 

  • To lacerate; to wound by multiple lacerations; to injure or damage by cutting, or as if by cutting. 

  • To move aggressively in front of another vehicle while driving. 

  • Comprise a particular selection of runners. 

  • To cut into smaller pieces, parts, or sections. 

  • To distress mentally or emotionally. 

  • To disintegrate; to break into pieces. 

adj
  • Emotionally upset; mentally distressed. 

  • Muscular and lean. 

  • Wounded with multiple lacerations. 

  • Having been cut into smaller pieces. 

joke

verb
  • To dupe in a friendly manner for amusement; to mess with, play with. 

  • To do or say something for amusement rather than seriously. 

noun
  • An amusing story. 

  • The root cause or main issue, especially an unexpected one 

  • A laughably worthless thing or person; a sham. 

  • Something that is far easier or far less challenging than expected. 

  • Something said or done for amusement, not in seriousness. 

How often have the words cut up and joke occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )