read someone the riot act

Verb

read someone the riot act (third-person singular simple present reads someone the riot act, present participle reading someone the riot act, simple past and past participle read someone the riot act)

1. (figuratively) To scold or berate somebody; to reprimand.
   • She really read him the riot act about his smoking habit.
   • But Will insisted mildly that it was a rough way to treat friends; whereupon Satanta read the riot act to his high-spirited young men, and bade them return the captured weapons to the scout.1899, Helen Cody Wetmore, Last of the Great Scouts

   Synonyms:

   admonish, animadvert, bash, bawl out, tilt, cannonade, slash, lash, blame, scorch

2. (Commonwealth, UK, archaic, historical) To give a formal warning for a riotous assembly to disperse, usually through reading a section of the Riot Act.
   • ‘Nothing but vigorous measures will do in these times, Grummer,’ said the magistrate, in a determined manner. ‘If the authority of the king’s officers is set at naught, we must have the riot act read. If the civil power cannot protect these windows, Grummer, the military must protect the civil...1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC
   • The Riot Act was read with the rapidity with which grace is sometimes said at the head of a public table—a ceremony of which none but the performer and his immediate friends are conscious.1845, B[enjamin] Disraeli, Sybil; or The Two Nations. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC