have words

Questions about have words

What does have words mean?

have words means "censure severely or angrily".

What is another word for have words?

Close synonyms include call on the carpet, take to task, rebuke, rag, trounce. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is have words a common word?

have words is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.