Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Anglo-Ind.) a roguish individual.

1810		T.H. Williamson East India Vade-Mecum 413: Sometimes the farce is concluded by a shower of clods, &c., thrown from a distance, and the whole fly in confusion. This is a device practised on the liberal, under the representation of the dealer in wood and wire-work, that some of the nutkuts, or frolicksome youths, of the camp, have battered the whole of the paraphernalia to pieces.
1842		F.J. Bellew ‘Memoirs of a Griffin’ in Asiatic Jrnl & Mthly Register July 157: The cornet said: ‘The Begum has been asking about you; she says you look very young; quite a chokra (boy) [...] she dares to say, you are a bit of a nut cut (roguish fellow) for all that.’.
1844		J.W. Kaye Peregrine Pultuney I 258: ‘Nut-cut bad word, very. You Englese say ruska [i.e. rascal] — bad man’.
1847		Sth Australian Reg. (Adelaide) 31 Jan. 4/4: There are nests of these nut-cuts established in various districts, who live entirely by the smashing system; and so ably do they carry on their illicit calling that they do not create even suspicion, and are therefore proportionately free from detection.
1869		Man about Town 9 Oct. 34/3: A nut kut, with a cigar in his mouth, told me they were rococo [...] His manner was deuced important and I felt disposed to give him bamboo backshish.
1885		L. Emmanuel Jottings [...] of a Bengal ‘qui hye’' 128: Old W- , indeed , was so anxious and so dearly prized his ‘Nut-kut’ ( wicked ) beast , that he wanted to offer a hundred Rupees.
1887		Kipling ‘The Hands of Justice’ in From Sea to Sea (NY) (1899) 323: ‘Peroo, you are a nut-cut (a young imp).’.
1901		Kipling Kim in McClure’s Mag. Mar. 463/1: ‘That is a nut-cut (rogue),’ she said. ‘All police-constables are nut-cuts; but the police-wallahs are the worst’.