cut up vs pick apart

cut up

verb
  • To distress mentally or emotionally. 

  • 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. 

  • 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. 

  • Comprise a particular selection of runners. 

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

  • To disintegrate; to break into pieces. 

adj
  • Emotionally upset; mentally distressed. 

  • Muscular and lean. 

  • Wounded with multiple lacerations. 

  • Having been cut into smaller pieces. 

pick apart

verb
  • To criticise (especially small details). 

  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pick, apart. 

  • To overcome by skilled execution. 

  • To review or analyse in great detail 

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