beat up vs whale on

beat up

verb
  • To give a severe beating to; to assault violently with repeated blows. 

  • To cause, by some other means, injuries comparable to the result of being beaten up. 

  • To feel badly guilty and accuse oneself over something. (Usually followed by over or about.) 

  • To repeatedly bomb a military target or targets. 

  • To get something done (derived from the idea of beating for game). 

  • To sail to windward using a series of alternate tacks across the wind. 

adj
  • Battered by time and usage; beaten up. 

noun
  • A raid. 

  • A tree planted later than others in a plantation. 

  • A person who, or thing that, has been beaten up. 

  • An artificially or disingenuously manufactured alarm or outcry, especially one agitated by or through the media. 

  • A beating; a hazing. 

whale on

verb
  • To strike an opponent heavily and repeatedly in a fight. 

  • To beat heavily on anything. 

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