Origin and history of uppercut

mid-15c., "a certain length" of something; 1520s, "gash, incision, opening made by an edged instrument," from cut (v.).

Meaning "piece cut off" (especially of meat) is from 1590s. Figurative sense of "a wounding sarcasm" is from 1560s. Meaning "an excision or omission of a part" is from c. 1600. Sense of "a reduction" is by 1881. Meaning "manner in which a thing is cut" is from 1570s, hence "fashion, style, make" (1580s).

Dialectal or local sense of "a creek or inlet" is from 1620s. Meaning "channel or trench made by cutting or digging" is from 1730. Meaning "block or stamp on which a picture is engraved" is from 1640s. Sense of "act of cutting a deck of cards" is from 1590s. Cinematic sense of "a quick transition from one shot to the next" is by 1933. Meaning "share" (of profit, loot, etc.) is by 1918.

Meaning "phonograph recording" is by 1949; the verb in the sense "make a recording" is by 1937, from the literal sense in reference to the mechanical process of making sound recordings.

Instead of a cutting tool actually operated by the sound vibrations from the voices or instruments of performing artists, the panatrope records are cut by a tool that is operated electrically. ["The New Electric Phonograph," in Popular Science, February 1926]. 

A cut above "a degree better than" is from 1818. Cold-cuts "cooked meats sliced and served cold" (1945) translates German kalter Aufschnitt.

c. 1300, "belonging to an elevated region;" late 14c., "pertaining to the topmost part of an object;" originally the comparative of up (adj.). As "chief, superior" from mid-15c.

In reference to peoples, etc., "occupying more elevated ground" by 1610s, but often also this means "occupying an interior district" (compare high (adj.); High German being that spoken in the upland regions of Germany which also are most interior).

Upper hand "advantage" is late 15c., perhaps from wrestling (get the over-hand in the same sense is from early 14c.); lower hand "condition of having lost or failed to win superiority" (1690s) is rare.

Upper crust is attested from mid-15c. in reference to the top crust of a loaf of bread, 1836 in reference to the higher circles of society. Upper ten thousand (1844) was common mid-19c. for "the wealthier and more aristocratic part of a large community;" sometimes upper ten for short, hence uppertendom.

Upper middle class (adj.) is recorded from 1835. The college upperclassman is so called by 1871. Stiff upper lip, figurative of courage and struggle against despondency, is by 1833. For upper-case for capital letters (1862) see case (n.2). 

Similar formation in Middle Dutch upper, Dutch opper, Low German upper, Norwegian yppare. Also as an adverb in Middle English, "higher":

As the sonne clymbith upper and upper, so goth his nadir downer and downer. [Chaucer, Treatise on the Astrolabe]