berate

verb be·rate \ bi-ˈrāt , bē- \

|Updated on: 13 Aug 2018

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Examples: berate in a Sentence

Editor's Note: berate and Rate

Definition of berate

berated; berating; berates

transitive verb

: to scold or condemn vehemently and at length

being berated by her parents when she came home late

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Examples of berate in a Sentence

there's no need to berate someone for making a mistake during the first day on the job

Recent Examples of berate from the Web

Trump has berated Amazon and The Post on social media, briefly driving down Amazon’s stock price.

— damian paletta, Philly.com, "Trump personally pushed postmaster general to double rates on Amazon, other firms," 18 May 2018
On Friday, protesters marched for hours through downtown, midtown and south Sacramento, at times tying up traffic, berating motorists and damaging a few vehicles.

— ryan sabalow, jason jones, tony bizjak, dale kasler and ed fletcher, sacbee, "Police work on plan to get fans safely into Thursday's Kings game. Will they show up?," 29 Mar. 2018
In the video posted on social media and widely viewed, a man later identified by authorities as Trybus can be seen berating the woman on June 14 at Caldwell Woods.

— don babwin, Fox News, "Man charged with hate crime over Puerto Rican shirt incident," 13 July 2018
Instead, the alliance’s most important member kicked things off by berating some of its closest allies.

— alex ward, Vox, "Trump blasted US allies within minutes of arriving at NATO summit," 11 July 2018
After berating her daughter, the woman locked the girl outside the house for hours in nearly 100-degree heat.

— steven martinez, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Dousman parents ripped out daughter's earring, locked her out of house as punishment for disobedience, complaint says," 10 July 2018
Many clutched signs in one hand with messages berating Mr. Trump and his immigration policies.

— New York Times, "Protests Across U.S. Call for End to Migrant Family Separations," 30 June 2018
The footage shows a man, dressed in a white button-down shirt and gray slacks, berating an employee at the fast-casual eatery Fresh Kitchen in midtown Manhattan because the staff were speaking Spanish.

— eli rosenberg and marwa eltagouri, courant.com, "Lawyer who threatened to call ICE about Spanish speakers is now target of complaint," 18 May 2018
Musk continually dodged tough questions and berated analysts for asking in the first place.

— maya kosoff, The Hive, "Elon Musk’s Bizarre Call With Analysts Just Cost Him Millions," 3 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'berate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

berate and Rate

Berate and rate can both mean "to scold angrily or violently." This sense of rate was first recorded in the 14th century, roughly two centuries before the now more familiar (and etymologically unrelated) rate meaning "to estimate the value of." We know that berate was probably formed by combining be and the older rate, but the origins of this particular rate itself are somewhat more obscure. We can trace the word back to the Middle English form raten, but beyond that things get a little murky. It's possible that rate, and by extension berate, derives from the same ancient word that led to the Swedish rata (meaning "to find blame, despise") and earlier the Old Norse hrata ("to fall, stagger"), but this is uncertain.

First Known Use of berate

1548

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

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berate Synonyms

Synonyms

bawl out, call down, castigate, chastise, chew out, dress down, flay, hammer, jaw, keelhaul, lambaste (or lambast), lecture, rag, rail (at or against), rant (at), rate, ream (out), rebuke, reprimand, reproach, scold, score, tongue-lash, upbraid;

Near Antonyms

approve, endorse (also indorse), sanction;

extol (also extoll), laud, praise;

abuse, assail, attack, bad-mouth, blame, blast, censure, condemn, criticize, crucify, denounce, dis (also diss) [slang], excoriate, fault, harangue, knock, lace (into), lash, pan, reprehend, revile, scourge, slam, vituperate;

belittle, disparage, mock, put down;

ridicule, scoff, scorn;

Phrases

lay into, read the riot act (to), take to task;

Synonym Discussion of berate

scold, upbraid, berate, rail, revile, vituperate mean to reproach angrily and abusively. scold implies rebuking in irritation or ill temper justly or unjustly.