give someone hell

Definitions

1. 1

   To castigate someone

   To castigate someone; to dress them down.

   • Near-synonym: raise hell
   • His boss really gave him hell when she found out that he'd been lying about filing the reports.
   • I gave it off to her and then I stormed right over to her husband, my colleague, and gave him hell as well .
2. 2

   To torment

   To torment; To make miserable.

   • Yes, she desired to see Edward suffer. And, by God, she gave him hell . She gave him an unimaginable hell.
   • She's been giving me hell all week.
   • In the thirties, my cousin, Charley Gans, my brother Gershon and I "gave him hell" when he taught that garbage in our classes .
3. 3

   To put up a fight against

   To put up a fight against; to battle strongly and effectively.

   • A nickname of U.S. President Harry Truman was "Give-'em-Hell Harry" because he could really give them hell when he wanted to.
   • Heine—the Canadians call their enemy Heine and not Fritz—"was at least three times as strong as us, and we gave him hell. It was hand-to-hand fighting —rifles, bombs, bayonets, butt ends —any old way of killing a man—"and we killed a lot.
   • I had warned my staff and the reporters that I was going out to win the election. "I'm going to fight hard," I told Senator Barkley. "I'm going to give them hell."

The neighborhood

• neighborhellraiser