give someone hell

Verb

give someone hell (third-person singular simple present gives someone hell, present participle giving someone hell, simple past gave someone hell, past participle given someone hell)

1. (idiomatic) To castigate someone; to dress them down.
   • Near-synonym: raise hell
   • His boss really gave him hell when she found out that he'd been lying about filing the reports.

   Synonyms:

   raise hell

2. To torment; To make miserable.
   • Yes, she desired to see Edward suffer. And, by God, she gave him hell . She gave him an unimaginable hell.1915, Madox Ford, The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion, page 274
   • She's been giving me hell all week.1992, Jo Sinclair, Anna Teller, page 345
3. To put up a fight against; to battle strongly and effectively.
   • A nickname of U.S. President Harry Truman was "Give-'em-Hell Harry" because he could really give them hell when he wanted to.
   • Heine—the Canadians call their enemy Heine and not Fritz—"was at least three times as strong as us, and we gave him hell. It was hand-to-hand fighting —rifles, bombs, bayonets, butt ends —any old way of killing a man—"and we killed a lot.1917, “The Desperate Fighting of the Canadians at Lens”, in The New York Times Current History, page 45