dress down

English[edit]

From analogy with dress up.

dress down (third-person singular simple present dresses down, present participle dressing down, simple past and past participle dressed down)

(transitive, idiomatic) To scold.
- 2022 October 10, Jonathan Mahon-Heap, quoting Hugo, 29, former analyst, “‘One guy brandished a whip’ – bankers on Industry’s rampant sex, drugs and bullying culture”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:
  One night – it was 2.30am – he dressed down a graduate, screaming in her face: “Are you stupid? Are you a fucking stupid cunt?” I had never seen anything like it in a workplace, or on TV, and I haven’t since.
- 2023 May 16, Cecilia Kang, “OpenAI’s Sam Altman Urges A.I. Regulation in Senate Hearing”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:
  Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and other tech luminaries have all been dressed down on Capitol Hill by lawmakers upset with their companies.
(intransitive) To wear casual or informal clothes.
(nautical) To prepare (caught fish) by gutting them, removing the heads and backbones, etc.
- 1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous:
  Dan could bait up trawl or lay his hand on any rope in the dark; and at a pinch, when Uncle Salters had a gurry-sore on his palm, could dress down by sense of touch.

to scold