Word.ws English Dictionary

give someone a speaking to

give someone a speaking to verb: to scold a person.

Verb

give someone a speaking to (third-person singular simple present gives someone a speaking to, present participle giving someone a speaking to, simple past and past participle gave someone a speaking to)

  1. (idiomatic) To scold a person.
    • When she comes home I will certainly be giving her a speaking to about breaking curfew.

Synonyms of give someone a speaking to

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of give someone a speaking to

third-person singular presentgives someone a speaking to
present participlegiving someone a speaking to
past participlegave someone a speaking to
pastgave someone a speaking to

Questions about give someone a speaking to

What does give someone a speaking to mean?
Give someone a speaking to means to scold a person.
What part of speech is give someone a speaking to?
Give someone a speaking to is a verb.
What is the past tense of give someone a speaking to?
The past tense of give someone a speaking to is gave someone a speaking to.

Words near give someone a speaking to in the dictionary

  1. give someone a jingle
  2. give someone a lift
  3. give someone a piece of one's mind
  4. give someone a ring
  5. give someone a shout
  6. give someone a speaking to
  7. give someone an earful
  8. give someone an inch and he'll take a yard
  9. give someone an inch and someone will take a mile
  10. give someone ass cancer
  11. give someone beans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: give someone a speaking to (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “give someone a speaking to.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/give_someone_a_speaking_to. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.