rebuke

What it means

1. A harsh criticism.

   U.S. Vice President JD Vance met Saturday with the Vatican's No. 2 official, following a remarkable papal rebuke of the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants and Vance’s theological justification of it.

   2025 April 19, Nicole Winfield, “JD Vance visits the Vatican for Easter after papal rebuke over Trump's migrant crackdown”, in The Christian Science Monitor, archived from the original on 28 Apr 2025

   2 more examples

   There was the sternness of an old-fashioned Tour patron in his rebuke to the young Frenchman Pierre Rolland, the only one to ride away from the peloton and seize the opportunity for a lone attack before being absorbed back into the bunch, where he was received with coolness.

   2012 July 15, Richard Williams, “Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track”, in Guardian Unlimited, archived from the original on 25 Jun 2022

   With his emphasis on accepting the science (he was a trained chemist) – and hence his stern rebuke to the climate change deniers and the politicians who courted them – he even managed to reset the relationship between science and religion, which had been rocky ever since Galileo fell foul of the Inquisition 400 years earlier.

   2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 30 Apr 2025

   Synonyms: reproach, reproof, reproval, reprehension, reprimand, admonition

In a sentence

There was the sternness of an old-fashioned Tour patron in his rebuke to the young Frenchman Pierre Rolland, the only one to ride away from the peloton and seize the opportunity for a lone attack before being absorbed back into the bunch, where he was received with coolness.

2012 July 15, Richard Williams, “Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track”, in Guardian Unlimited, archived from the original on 25 Jun 2022

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Germanic*buskaz“bush”
2. Frankish*busk“grove”
3. Vulgar Latin*busca“wood, grove”
4. Old French*buker
5. Anglo-Normanrebuker“to beat back, repel”
6. Middle Englishrebuken
7. Englishrebuke

From Middle English rebuken, from Anglo-Norman rebuker (“to beat back, repel”), from re- + Old French *buker, buchier, buschier (“to strike, hack down, chop”), from busche (“wood”), from Vulgar Latin *busca (“wood, grove”), from Frankish *busk (“grove”), from Proto-Germanic *buskaz (“bush”); equivalent to re- + bush.