Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) exhausted.

1863		Blackwood’s Mag. XC 766: [I’m] bate up wid foitin’ [HDAS].
1914		Daily Express 2 Sept. 3/1: We were all beat up after four days of the hardest soldiering you ever dreamt of.
1944		Cab Calloway New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 253: beat up (adj.): sad, uncomplimentary, tired.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1956		J. Stearn Sisters of the Night 55: Between the dope and trying to please the girls he’s pretty beat up.
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 153: Melora opened the door looking definitely beat-up herself, in an old dressing-gown.
1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 236: When he’s beat up and sore and whip-dog tired and mentally wrung out from the game.
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 94: I feel like shit, not just beat-up and sore, but real sweaty and nervous.

2. (US) of a place or object, dilapidated, run down.

[1647		New Merry Letany 1: From a Whores quarters, that oft are beat up, / From quaffing in a hot French-mans cup [...] Libera nos].
1930		(con. 1917) ‘W.W. Windstaff’ ‘A Flier’s War’ in Longstreet Canvas Falcons (1970) 278: I was [...] waiting for the grease monkey to change a tire on the officers’-mess car, a beat-up Bentley.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 56: If you’ll pardon my beat-up English – Ain’t that a bitch!
1951		M. Spillane One Lonely Night 80: I [...] watched them all climb into a beat-up coupé.
1959		L. Hansberry Raisin in the Sun I i: Tired of everything. [...] the way we live—this beat-up hole.
1969		M. Puzo Godfather 142: It would be a beat-up looking car but with a fine motor.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 162: He got up and [...] went over to the beat-up camera.
1984		A. Sayle Train to Hell 151: He dragged me into one of the hundreds of cruising beat-up taxis.
1997		D. Farson Never a Normal Man 174: They were leaving town that evening in a beat-up car.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Real Life 1 Aug. 5: Travelling around America in a beat-up pick-up truck.
2000		M. Collins Keepers of Truth 149: There was a beat-up old truck parked.
2006		P. Shannon Davey Darling 73: The owners of this beat-up mess of a farm.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 24: He drives around in that beat-up Buick.

3. of a person, ageing, run down, ill.

1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 422: I never did see such a dirty, messy, bloody, beat-up bunch of people in my whole life.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 218: He’s a beat-up old hood.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 13: These poor beat-up old winos.
1958		Murtagh & Harris Cast the First Stone 17: Them beat-up old hags we got around.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 16: That beat-up junky broad.

4. (US campus) wrong, bad.

1984		Eble Campus Sl. Mar.
1987		Eble Campus Sl. Spring 1: beat up – fouled up, foolish, illogical.
1999		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 1: beat-up – unfair, wrong, unethical.