Advertisement - Continue reading below

Definition of "scold" [scold]

  • To reprimand or criticize harshly and usually angrily. (verb-transitive)
  • To reprove or criticize openly. (verb-intransitive)
  • One who persistently nags or criticizes: "As a critic gets older, he or she usually grows more tetchy and . . . may even become a big-league scold” ( James Wolcott). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "scold" in a sentence
  • "Music stores are blasting love songs into the street, and no nationalist or Islamist scold is forcing them to stop."
  • "I could wish, indeed, that the word scold might be changed for some more gentle term, of equal signification; because I am convinced, that the very name is as offensive to female ears, as the effects of that incurable distemper are to the ears of the men; which, to be sure, is inexpressible."
  • "He is so fixed on not seeming like a presidential flirt that he risks coming across as a bit of a righteous tease or a high-minded scold, which is exactly what his book is, a high-minded scolding."