"haul someone over the coals" meaning in English

See haul someone over the coals in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-haul someone over the coals.ogg [Australia] Forms: hauls someone over the coals [present, singular, third-person], hauling someone over the coals [participle, present], hauled someone over the coals [participle, past], hauled someone over the coals [past]
Etymology: In reference to a punishment once meted out to heretics. Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=haul someone over the coals}} haul someone over the coals (third-person singular simple present hauls someone over the coals, present participle hauling someone over the coals, simple past and past participle hauled someone over the coals)
  1. (chiefly UK, idiomatic) To express anger with someone in no uncertain terms when they do something wrong. Tags: UK, idiomatic
    Sense id: en-haul_someone_over_the_coals-en-verb-vS9K1lux Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header Synonyms: berate, give someone a dressing down, give someone a telling off, pull someone over the coals, rake someone over the coals, read someone the riot act, scold, tell someone off, tear a strip off someone, tear someone a new one, tear someone a new asshole

Download JSON data for haul someone over the coals meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "In reference to a punishment once meted out to heretics.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hauls someone over the coals",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hauling someone over the coals",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hauled someone over the coals",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hauled someone over the coals",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "haul someone over the coals"
      },
      "expansion": "haul someone over the coals (third-person singular simple present hauls someone over the coals, present participle hauling someone over the coals, simple past and past participle hauled someone over the coals)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "British English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The teacher hauled him over the coals for not doing his homework."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To express anger with someone in no uncertain terms when they do something wrong."
      ],
      "id": "en-haul_someone_over_the_coals-en-verb-vS9K1lux",
      "links": [
        [
          "anger",
          "anger"
        ],
        [
          "in no uncertain terms",
          "in no uncertain terms"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly UK, idiomatic) To express anger with someone in no uncertain terms when they do something wrong."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "berate"
        },
        {
          "word": "give someone a dressing down"
        },
        {
          "word": "give someone a telling off"
        },
        {
          "word": "pull someone over the coals"
        },
        {
          "word": "rake someone over the coals"
        },
        {
          "word": "read someone the riot act"
        },
        {
          "word": "scold"
        },
        {
          "word": "tell someone off"
        },
        {
          "word": "tear a strip off someone"
        },
        {
          "word": "tear someone a new one"
        },
        {
          "word": "tear someone a new asshole"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-haul someone over the coals.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/54/En-au-haul_someone_over_the_coals.ogg/En-au-haul_someone_over_the_coals.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/En-au-haul_someone_over_the_coals.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "haul someone over the coals"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "In reference to a punishment once meted out to heretics.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hauls someone over the coals",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hauling someone over the coals",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hauled someone over the coals",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hauled someone over the coals",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "haul someone over the coals"
      },
      "expansion": "haul someone over the coals (third-person singular simple present hauls someone over the coals, present participle hauling someone over the coals, simple past and past participle hauled someone over the coals)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "British English",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The teacher hauled him over the coals for not doing his homework."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To express anger with someone in no uncertain terms when they do something wrong."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "anger",
          "anger"
        ],
        [
          "in no uncertain terms",
          "in no uncertain terms"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly UK, idiomatic) To express anger with someone in no uncertain terms when they do something wrong."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-haul someone over the coals.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/54/En-au-haul_someone_over_the_coals.ogg/En-au-haul_someone_over_the_coals.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/En-au-haul_someone_over_the_coals.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "berate"
    },
    {
      "word": "give someone a dressing down"
    },
    {
      "word": "give someone a telling off"
    },
    {
      "word": "pull someone over the coals"
    },
    {
      "word": "rake someone over the coals"
    },
    {
      "word": "read someone the riot act"
    },
    {
      "word": "scold"
    },
    {
      "word": "tell someone off"
    },
    {
      "word": "tear a strip off someone"
    },
    {
      "word": "tear someone a new one"
    },
    {
      "word": "tear someone a new asshole"
    }
  ],
  "word": "haul someone over the coals"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.