REPROVE

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (verb)

Verb forms

Present simple: I / you / we / they reprove ... he / she / it reproves

Past simple: reproved

Past participle: reproved

-ing form: reproving

Sense 1

Meaning:

Take to task

Example:

He admonished the child for his bad behavior

Synonyms:

admonish; reproof; reprove

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "reprove" is one way to...):

criticise; criticize; knock; pick apart (find fault with; express criticism of; point out real or perceived flaws)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

reproval (an act or expression of criticism and censure)

reprover (someone who finds fault or imputes blame)

Credits

Context examples:

I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic meeting.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Emma, I stand reproved.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She was then taken into a parlour, so small that her first conviction was of its being only a passage-room to something better, and she stood for a moment expecting to be invited on; but when she saw there was no other door, and that there were signs of habitation before her, she called back her thoughts, reproved herself, and grieved lest they should have been suspected.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Here ceased the rapid flow of her self-reproving spirit; and Elinor, impatient to soothe, though too honest to flatter, gave her instantly that praise and support which her frankness and her contrition so well deserved.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Another paper, in deadly seriousness, reproving Helen Della Delmar for her parody, said: But unquestionably Miss Delmar wrote it in a moment of badinage and not quite with the respect that one great poet should show to another and perhaps to the greatest.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Mr. Dick was so very complacent, sitting on the foot of the bed, nursing his leg, and telling me this, with his eyes wide open and a surprised smile, that I am sorry to say I was provoked into explaining to him that ruin meant distress, want, and starvation; but I was soon bitterly reproved for this harshness, by seeing his face turn pale, and tears course down his lengthened cheeks, while he fixed upon me a look of such unutterable woe, that it might have softened a far harder heart than mine.