Word.ws English Dictionary

rake over old coals

rake over old coals verb: to bring back old problems; to dig up old trouble.

Verb

rake over old coals (third-person singular simple present rakes over old coals, present participle raking over old coals, simple past and past participle raked over old coals)

  1. (UK, figuratively) To bring back old problems; to dig up old trouble.

Forms of rake over old coals

third-person singular presentrakes over old coals
present participleraking over old coals
past participleraked over old coals
pastraked over old coals

Questions about rake over old coals

What does rake over old coals mean?
Rake over old coals means to bring back old problems; to dig up old trouble.
What part of speech is rake over old coals?
Rake over old coals is a verb.
What is the past tense of rake over old coals?
The past tense of rake over old coals is raked over old coals.

Words near rake over old coals in the dictionary

  1. rake in
  2. rake it in
  3. rake off
  4. rake out
  5. rake over
  6. rake over old coals
  7. rake over the coals
  8. rake receiver
  9. rake receivers
  10. rake stepping
  11. rake steppings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rake over old coals (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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