rough up vs beat up

rough up and beat up both are verbs.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
rough up	No	No	Yes	No
beat up	No	No	Yes	No

As verbs, beat up is a hypernym of rough up; that is, beat up is a word with a broader meaning than rough up:

rough up: treat violently
beat up: give a beating to; subject to a beating, either as a punishment or as an act of aggression

Other hypernyms of rough up include beat, work over.

rough up (verb)	beat up (verb)
treat violently	gather
	give a beating to; subject to a beating, either as a punishment or as an act of aggression