Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. injured, hurt.

1897		‘’Arry on Diamond Jubilee Charity’ in Punch 27 Mar. 150/3: When you’re down on your luck and broke up.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. 15/4: I’m growin’ old and seedy – I’m broke up like a kite.
1917		T.W.H. Crosland ‘Wounded’ Coll. Poems 140: Broke right up and full o’ pain, / But back again – back again!

2. depressed, badly upset.

1864		T.F. Upson diary 22 Dec. in Winther With Sherman to the Sea (1958) 143: I am all broke up. It just seems as though the bottom was falling out of everything.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 23 May 18/4: In Sydney, both these gentlemen were invariably in clover – Peter putting up at the Coffee Palace and making a perfect Malay of himself with the butter, and Dowie always had a well appointed house, with a servant who disguised the fact of her possessing a broken heart, with singular success. Now they are ‘all broke up.’.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 112: The fellow was all broke up, but he gave me $100 in gold.
1891		F.J. Harris Elder Conklin and Other Stories (1895) 73: I’m all broke up.
1895		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 13 Apr. 4/4: The Coolgardie miner is laid up [...] He’s a bit broke up about it.
1900		Ade More Fables in Sl. (1960) 112: Henry was all Broken Up.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Jul. 13/4: Percy: ‘Whatevah is the mattah, Hawold, you look positively bwoke up?’ / Harold: ‘Yaas, Persay, I am. I’m in such a beastly pwedicament; I’ve left my stick at the club.’.
1908		F.J. Harris Bomb 222: All broken up I began to cry weakly.
1914		R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 55: She was all broke up and wanted to go along with me.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 265: She’s all bruk up about that death in her fambly.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 84: Poor Jim was all broken up on account of my sudden ‘death’.
1930		K.S. Prichard Haxby’s Circus 115: You know how broke up I was about you, Gina.
1935		L. Hughes Mulatto in Three Negro Plays (1969) Act I: He was mighty broke up when you said last week that he couldn’t go back to campus.
1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 97: She was so broke up and hurting that she couldn’t stand still.
1965		F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 104: [They] were very broke up about Murphy dying.
1975		L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 278: I was so broke-up about this.
1981		S. Berkoff Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 10: I cried for days / right broke up.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 129: Bit broke up she was only made out she wasn’t arsed.

3. touched, affected; enamoured.

1890		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 15 Feb. 2/4: George Crowell and Miss McMillan of Helena, Mont., have for some time past been ‘allee blookee up’ on each other.
1897		E.W. Townsend Chimmie Fadden 4: Say, I was all broken up, and couldn’t say notting.
1939		in A. Banks First-Person America (1980) 156: Her folks was awful broken-up about it and wanted to make it good.