A dressing-down is a severe telling-off from somebody in charge. Door closed, voice low, nobody enjoying it.
You give somebody a dressing-down, or you get one. It is always delivered downwards — a manager to an employee, an officer to a soldier — and that is what separates it from an ordinary row between equals. The word is slightly old-fashioned and slightly amused, so it tends to appear when the writer thinks the telling-off was deserved but survivable. Its close relatives are a ticking-off, which is milder, and a roasting, which is louder.
1noundressing-downA severe scolding from someone in authority.
“He got a dressing-down from the head teacher.”
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 4 of A Man Called Ove.
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