verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To chide or scold vehemently. transitive

   "What society tells people that they can “do whatever they want” to dissidents, and yet berates anyone for treating them well?"

2. 2
   censure severely or angrily wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

scoldabuseadmonishattackbadmouthbark at

Example

More examples

"If you berate me like that again, I will quit."

Etymology

From be- + rate (“to scold, upbraid”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.