tell off

1. 1.

   reprimand

   “She told the misbehaving student off”

   Synonymsbrush down

   Broadercall on the carpet

Questions about tell off

What does tell off mean?

tell off means "reprimand".

What is another word for tell off?

Close synonyms include brush down. 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 tell off a common word?

tell off 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.