Word.ws English Dictionary

give what for

give what for verb: to scold; to punish, especially verbally.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To scold; to punish, especially verbally.
    • When she found out, she really gave him what for.

Synonyms of give what for

11 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of give what for

third-person singular presentgives what for
present participlegiving what for
pastgave what for
past participlegiven what for

Questions about give what for

What does give what for mean?
Give what for means to scold; to punish, especially verbally.
What part of speech is give what for?
Give what for is a verb.
What is the past tense of give what for?
The past tense of give what for is gave what for.

Words near give what for in the dictionary

  1. give voice
  2. give way
  3. give way sign
  4. give way signs
  5. give weight
  6. give what for
  7. give with one hand and take away with the other
  8. give your head a wobble
  9. give zero fucks
  10. give-and-go
  11. give-and-gos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: give what for (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-give what for.ogg.

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