read someone the riot act

present singular third person reads someone the riot act · participle present reading someone the riot act · alternative read the riot act · alternative read the Riot Act · alternative read someone the Riot Act

1. figurativelyTo scold or berate somebody; to reprimand.

   She really read him the riot act about his smoking habit.

   3 more examples

   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

   March mellowed into April. May read a gorgeous riot act to the parks and waters of Manhattan, and they were very happy.

   1920 September, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “Head and Shoulders”, in Flappers and Philosophers, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 110

   He had Lyle on the carpet. He had summarily called him down to his office to read him the riot act.

   1993, Ruth M. Sprague, Wild Justice

   Synonyms: admonish, animadvert, bash, bawl out, tilt, clobber, cannonade, slash

2. CommonwealthUKarchaichistoricalTo give a formal warning for a riotous assembly to disperse, usually through reading a section of the Riot Act.

   He wades right in for a showdown, an' nails Billy outside, before everybody, an' reads the riot act.

   1913 October, Jack London, The Valley of the Moon, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, book I, page 54

   5 more examples

   ‘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 power, and the windows too.

   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

   To do things “railroad fashion” is now the by-word; and it is worth the while to be warned so often and so sincerely by any power to get off its track. There is no stopping to read the riot act, no firing over the heads of the mob, in this case.

   1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC

   He made it sound as though we were all a lot of Adelphi heroes and ought to be promoted and have medals, but when Lord Russell started in to read the Riot Act at us I began to believe that hanging was too good for me. I’m sure I never knew I was disturbing the peace of nations; it seems like such a large order for a subaltern.

   1899, Richard Harding Davis, The Lion and the Unicorn

   To take infinite precautions, they complained, against the juvenile perusal of such eminently innocuous literature was like reading the Riot Act on an uninhabited island.

   1911, Saki [pseudonym; Hector Hugh Munro], “Ministers of Grace”, in The Chronicles of Clovis, London: The Bodley Head