Rebuke
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A harsh criticism.
"There was the sternness of an old-fashioned Tour patron in his rebuke to the young Frenchman Pierre Rolland, the only one to ride away from the peloton and seize the opportunity for a lone attack before being absorbed back into the bunch, where he was received with coolness."
- 2 an act or expression of criticism and censure wordnet
- 1 To criticise harshly; to reprove.
"O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger or discipline me in Your wrath."
- 2 censure severely or angrily wordnet
Example
More examples"He took it for an implied rebuke."
Etymology
From Middle English rebuken, from Anglo-Norman rebuker (“to beat back, repel”), from re- + Old French *buker, buchier, buschier (“to strike, hack down, chop”), from busche (“wood”), from Vulgar Latin *busca (“wood, grove”), from Frankish *busk (“grove”), from Proto-Germanic *buskaz (“bush”); equivalent to re- + bush.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.