Word.ws English Dictionary

raking over the coals

raking over the coals is the present participle and gerund of rake over the coals.

Meaning of rake over the coals

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To call to task or to reprimand severely.
    • She raked him over the coals for lying to her.

Questions about raking over the coals

What is raking over the coals the present participle and gerund of?
Raking over the coals is the present participle and gerund of rake over the coals.

Words near raking over the coals in the dictionary

  1. raking it in
  2. raking off
  3. raking out
  4. raking over
  5. raking over old coals
  6. raking over the coals
  7. raking together
  8. raking up
  9. rakingly
  10. rakings
  11. rakis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: raking over the coals (page history and authors); rake over the 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “raking over the coals.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/raking_over_the_coals. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.