Verb
dress down (third-person singular simple present dresses down, present participle dressing down, simple past and past participle dressed down)
- (transitive, idiomatic) To scold.
2022 October 10, Jonathan Mahon-Heap, quoting Hugo, 29, former analyst, “‘One guy brandished a whip’ – bankers on Industry’s rampant sex, drugs and bullying culture”, in The Guardian:One night – it was 2.30am – he dressed down a graduate, screaming in her face: “Are you stupid? Are you a fucking stupid cunt?” I had never seen anything like it in a workplace, or on TV, and I haven’t since.
2023 May 16, Cecilia Kang, “OpenAI’s Sam Altman Urges A.I. Regulation in Senate Hearing”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and other tech luminaries have all been dressed down on Capitol Hill by lawmakers upset with their companies.
- (intransitive) To wear casual or informal clothes.
- (nautical) To prepare (caught fish) by gutting them, removing the heads and backbones, etc.
1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous:Dan could bait up trawl or lay his hand on any rope in the dark; and at a pinch, when Uncle Salters had a gurry-sore on his palm, could dress down by sense of touch.