read the riot act

present singular third person reads the riot act · participle present reading the riot act

1. alternativeAlternative form of read someone the riot act

   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

present singular third person reads the Riot Act · participle present reading the Riot Act

1. alternativeAlternative form of read someone the riot act

   I'd read the Riot Act. They'll be lootin' this house next!

   1917 June (first performance), John Galsworthy, “The Foundations (an Extravagant Play)”, in Plays: Fourth Series, volume IV, London: Duckworth and Co. […], published 1920, →OCLC, Act III, page 63

   1 more example

   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