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.
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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.
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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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