rebuke

English

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.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɹiˈbjuːk/, /ɹɪˈbjuːk/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -uːk

Noun

rebuke (plural rebukes)

  1. (of a person) A harsh criticism.
    • 2012 July 15, Richard Williams, “Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track”, in Guardian Unlimited‎[1]:
      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.
    • 2025 April 19, Nicole Winfield, “JD Vance visits the Vatican for Easter after papal rebuke over Trump's migrant crackdown”, in The Christian Science Monitor:
      U.S. Vice President JD Vance met Saturday with the Vatican's No. 2 official, following a remarkable papal rebuke of the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants and Vance’s theological justification of it.
    • 2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian‎[2]:
      With his emphasis on accepting the science (he was a trained chemist) – and hence his stern rebuke to the climate change deniers and the politicians who courted them – he even managed to reset the relationship between science and religion, which had been rocky ever since Galileo fell foul of the Inquisition 400 years earlier.

Synonyms

Translations

Verb

rebuke (third-person singular simple present rebukes, present participle rebuking, simple past and past participle rebuked)

  1. (of a person) To criticise harshly; to reprove.
    Synonyms: reprimand, reproach, reprove, reprehend, admonish; see also Thesaurus:criticize

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