start on at
To start on at someone is British informal for launching into criticism or a complaint directed at a specific person — nagging, berating, or having a go at them, often repeatedly and without much provocation.
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To start on at someone is British informal for launching into criticism or a complaint directed at a specific person — nagging, berating, or having a go at them, often repeatedly and without much provocation. It implies persistence; you don't just criticize once, you start on at them and keep going. It's the verbal equivalent of a dog with a bone. Common in northern English dialects, it conveys the kind of low-level domestic friction that everyone has experienced but not everyone has a snappy phrase for.
She came home and immediately started on at him about the dishes he'd left in the sink all day.
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(informal, UK) (To criticize).
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🇬🇧About British & Irish slang slang
UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
See all British & Irish slang slang on Slangora.
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Semantically related
- get on at79%
(Britain) To scold, to criticize, to complain directly to.
- be on at71%
(US, informal) To complain to (someone).
- get onto68%
(transitive) To scold someone; to pressure someone; to criticize someone.
- go off on one67%
(British, colloquial) To launch into an animated diatribe, or passionate description or explanation of something.