read someone the riot act
(British, Commonwealth, , archaic, historic) To give a formal warning for a riotous assembly to disperse, usually through reading a section of the Riot Act.
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Born ~1714 · no dated citations yetDefinitions
(British, Commonwealth, , archaic, historic) To give a formal warning for a riotous assembly to disperse, usually through reading a section of the Riot Act.
She really read him the riot act about his smoking habit.
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(idiomatic) To scold or berate somebody; to reprimand.
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Semantically related
- read59%
To tell; to declare; to recite.
- read59%
A reading or an act of reading, especially of an actor's part of a play or a piece of stored data.
- read59%
To speak aloud words or other information that is written.
- read57%
To call attention to the flaws of (someone) in a playful, taunting, or insulting way.