dressing down

Verb

dress down (third-person singular simple present dresses down, present participle dressing down, simple past and past participle dressed down)

1. (idiomatic, transitive) To scold.
   • One night – it was 2.30am – he dressed down a graduate, screaming in her face: “Are you stupid? Are you a fucking stupid cunt?” I had never seen anything like it in a workplace, or on TV, and I haven’t since.2022 October 10, Jonathan Mahon-Heap, quoting Hugo, 29, former analyst, “‘One guy brandished a whip’ – bankers on Industry’s rampant sex, drugs and bullying culture”, in The Guardian, archived from...
2. (intransitive) To wear casual or informal clothes.
3. To prepare (caught fish) by gutting them, removing the heads and backbones, etc.
   • Dan could bait up trawl or lay his hand on any rope in the dark; and at a pinch, when Uncle Salters had a gurry-sore on his palm, could dress down by sense of touch.1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous