Scolder

scold  (skld)

v. scold·ed, scold·ing, scolds

v.tr.

To reprimand or criticize harshly and usually angrily.

v.intr.

To reprove or criticize openly.

n.

One who persistently nags or criticizes: "As a critic gets older, he or she usually grows more tetchy and . . . may even become a big-league scold" (James Wolcott).

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[Middle English scolden, to be abusive, from scolde, an abusive person, probably of Scandinavian origin; see sek^w-³ in Indo-European roots.]

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scolder n.

scolding·ly adv.

Synonyms: scold, upbraid, berate, revile, vituperate, rail³
These verbs mean to reprimand or criticize angrily or vehemently. Scold implies reproof: parents who scolded their child for being rude.
Upbraid generally suggests a well-founded reproach, as one leveled by an authority: upbraided by the supervisor for habitual tardiness.
Berate suggests scolding or rebuking at length: an angry customer who berated the clerk.
Revile and vituperate especially stress the use of disparaging or abusive language: critics who reviled the novel as unsophisticated pulp. "The incensed priests . . . continued to raise their voices, vituperating each other in bad Latin" (Sir Walter Scott).
Rail suggests bitter, harsh, or denunciatory language: "Why rail at fate? The mischief is your own" (John Greenleaf Whittier).

Word History: A scold is not usually a poet and a scolding rarely sounds like poetry to the one being scolded, but it seems that the word scold has a poetic background. It is probable that scold, first recorded in Middle English in a work probably composed around 1150, has a Scandinavian source related to the Old Icelandic word skld, "poet." Middle English scolde may in fact mean "a minstrel," but of that we are not sure. However, its Middle English meanings, "a ribald abusive person" and "a shrewish chiding woman," may be related to skld, as shown by the senses of some of the Old Icelandic words derived from skld. Old Icelandic skldskapr, for example, meant "poetry" in a good sense but also "a libel in verse," while skld-stöng meant "a pole with imprecations or charms scratched on it." It would seem that libelous cursing verse was a noted part of at least some poets' productions and that this association with poets passed firmly along with the Scandinavian borrowing into English.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

scolder - someone (especially a woman) who annoys people by constantly finding fault common scold, nag, nagger, scold disagreeable person, unpleasant person - a person who is not pleasant or agreeable harridan - a scolding (even vicious) old woman