transitive. To treat (a person) in a certain way; spec. to treat (a person) appropriately or fittingly. In later use chiefly ironically: to…

To strike, beat, or attack (with blows, or with mockery, sarcasm, rebuke, or the like). Now dialect or slang.

transitive. To check (a person) in speaking; to interrupt sharply, esp. with an expression of dissent or disapproval; to rebuke, reprove, or…

figurative. To vex, afflict, torment; to punish, chastise; to administer severe satire or reproof to, ‘lash’, ‘castigate’.

To rate soundly, abuse violently. (Very common in 16–17th centuries.) Also, to harass, afflict.

To assail or attack with rebuke or abuse; to censure; to scold severely.

transitive. To chastise, correct, inflict corrective punishment on; to subdue by punishment or discipline, to chasten; now usually, to punish or…

figurative; esp. ‘To scourge with satire’ (Johnson); to castigate in words, rebuke, satirize, vituperate.

transitive. To rebuke severely; to chide, scold.

figurative. To strike as with ‘thunder’. To inflict severe or terrible vengeance, reproof, or the like, upon. In quot. 1818 in physical sense, to…

To take up sharply or severely; to order about in a sharp fashion. Obsolete.

To reprimand.

figurative. To rebuke severely, to upbraid. Obsolete.

transitive. To berate (a person) angrily; to reprimand severely. Also with out, up, and adverbial phrase. Occasionally also intransitive: to scold.

North American. To rate, scold severely. Now esp. used in newspaper headlines.

transitive. To reprimand (a person) severely; to rebuke, admonish.

intransitive. To attack or assail forcibly (with blows, words, etc.); to rebuke or criticize strongly; to set about. Also transitive with it, and…

To rebuke or censure severely, scold, rate. Also rarely intransitive with at. slang or colloquial.

U.S. slang to row (a person) up: to subject (a person) to severe verbal castigation or abuse. Obsolete.

to give (a person) Jesse: to treat or handle severely; to beat or scold soundly. Similarly to catchor get Jesse.

To assail with reproof or abuse; to rate or reprimand; to scold severely.

To come down upon, on with a surprise, a check, or forcible reproof; to ‘pitch into’. colloquial.

Slang phr. to drop (down) toor on (to): to come casually or accidentally to knowledge of (something); to understand, become aware of, recognize. Also…

Originally and chiefly U.S. to give (a person) rats: to give (a person) a hard time; to berate, rebuke. Now disused.

With prepositions in special uses. to jump upon: To spring or pounce upon as a beast upon its victim, or a victor upon the prostrate body of a foe…

Hence colloquial in various hyperbolical phrases, as to scream oneself into fits, to throw (a person) into fits. Also, to beat (a person, a thing)…

Stiffly, firmly, tightly, hard, etc. Phrase, to give it to someone (pretty) stiff: to speak severely to, to rate.

figurative. To scold, castigate.

transitive. To criticize severely; to rebuke, reprimand, chide; (also) to nag.

transitive. Chiefly British. To reprimand or tell off severely.

With out (also ball out): To reprove or reprimand loudly or severely. Originally U.S.

transitive. To reprimand severely; to punish Military slang (chiefly Nautical).

transitive. U.S. slang. To criticize, reprimand, or berate (someone). Also: to insult (a person) in a particularly cutting or scathing manner.

to hang, draw, and quarter: to put (a person) to death by hanging, disembowelling (see draw, v. 57a), then cutting the body into four pieces (see qu…

to tear (someone) off a strip, to tear a strip off (someone) and variants: to upbraid or reprimand (someone); to lose a strip, to have a strip to…

to tear (someone) off a strip, to tear a strip off (someone) and variants: to upbraid or reprimand (someone); to lose a strip, to have a strip to…

slang (originally Services' slang). (See quot. 1943.)

transitive. colloquial (originally Military slang). To reprimand severely. Cf. rocket, n.5 7.

transitive. Chiefly North American. With out. To scold or severely reprimand (a person). Cf. bawl, v. 3c.

figurative. intransitive with off (const. on): to hit out at, attack, reprimand, criticize severely. U.S. slang.

slang. trans. To beat; to rate soundly.