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Definition of "rebuke" []

  • To criticize or reprove sharply; reprimand. See Synonyms at admonish. (verb-transitive)
  • To check or repress. (verb-transitive)
  • A sharp reproof. (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 "rebuke" in a sentence
  • "To be suffered to go on in sin without a rebuke is a sad sign of alienation from God; such are bastards, not sons."
  • "His decision brought a rebuke from the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network (JCN), which slammed Graham's support "based upon his apparent willful blindness to her record, both on the bench and off, of indulging her own ethnic and gender biases, personal political views, and liberal agenda in the name of 'law.'""
  • "One might say that such a rebuke is being made on literary rather than moral grounds, but do literary critics have a better idea of what a novelist's ambition ought to be than the novelist him/herself?"