read the riot act

Fig. to give someone a severe scolding. The manager read me the riot act for coming in late. The teacher read the students the riot act for their failure to do their assignments.

to strongly warn someone to stop behaving badly Alice read Randi the riot act, telling her, a€?If you don't like it here, you can just go back where you came from.a€? The secretary of state said she plans to read the riot act to the country's leaders during meetings next week.

to speak angrily to someone about something they have done and warn them that they will be punished if they do it again He'd put up with a lot of bad behaviour from his son and thought it was time to read him the riot act.

Warn or reprimand forcefully or severely, as in When he was caught throwing stones at the windows, the principal read him the riot act . This term alludes to an actual British law, the Riot Act of 1714, which required reading a proclamation so as to disperse a crowd; those who did not obey within an hour were guilty of a felony. [First half of 1800s]

To warn or reprimand energetically or forcefully: The teacher read the riot act to the rowdy class.

Criticize harshly. A 1725 British Act of Parliament provided that a magistrate could tell any gathering of a dozen or more people who were creating a civil disturbance to disperse by reading an official statement to that effect. Failure to heed the warning led to arrest (the law remained in effect until 1973). Used popularly, the phrase became the equivalent of “getting a good chewing out,” even if only one person was “read the riot act.”