riot act

1. 1.

   a vigorous reprimand

   “I read him the riot act”

   Broaderrebuke
2. 2.

   a former English law requiring mobs to disperse after a magistrate reads the law to them

   Broaderlaw

   Part ofcriminal law

   law

Questions about riot act

What does riot act mean?

riot act means "a vigorous reprimand". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is riot act a common word?

riot act is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.