What does "wrist-slap" mean?

A mild reprimand, especially one that many observers might consider too lenient.

Wrist-slap

Common synonyms include: kid-glove, slap on the arm, slap on the arm, slap on the hand, slap on the hand, slap on the wrist.

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A mild reprimand, especially one that many observers might consider too lenient. countable
"Some crimes clearly warrant more than a mere wrist-slap — physically dangerous people must be removed from circulation."

Verb

1
To reprimand mildly. idiomatic, transitive
"You know the mother will probably only wrist-slap her "little angel" with a tsk-tsk. No wonder the kid is a little terror."

"You know the mother will probably only wrist-slap her "little angel" with a tsk-tsk. No wonder the kid is a little terror."

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