Make Your Point: BERATE

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pronounce BERATE:

buh RATE

connect this word to others:

From an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, here's Giles scolding Buffy, lecturing her, telling her off for doing something bad, berating her:

"Be quiet. I won't remind you that the fate of the world often rests with the Slayer. What would be the point? Nor shall I remind you that you have jeopardized the lives of everyone you know by housing a known murderer. But sadly I must remind you that Angel tortured me. For hours. For pleasure. You should have told me he was alive. You didn't. You have no respect for me, or the job I perform."

(Source)

Considering why Giles is so angry at Buffy, maybe the word berating isn't harsh enough, so we could say that Giles is reb__ing Buffy: scolding her harshly, as if he's slapping her with words. Or we could say he's upb___ding her: scolding her extremely harshly, as if he's yanking her upward to yell in her face. Could you recall those synonyms?

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definition:

Pluck the word "berate" apart into be- (meaning "thoroughly") and rate (meaning "scold"), and you see how it literally means "to thoroughly scold." It traces back to the Latin reputare, meaning "to reflect on, or to count over." To berate someone is to tell them how bad they've been, as if you're listing out all of the bad things they've done one by one: "And you did this. And you did that. And you did that."

In other words, when you berate someone, you scold them, lecture them, or complain about them right to their face, usually for a long time, using a loud, harsh voice.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the transitive kind: "They berated the employees for working too slowly."

Other forms:

Just "berated" and "berating."

how to use it:

Pick the harsh, formal, serious, semi-common word "berate" when you want to emphasize that someone is scolding someone else for a long time, as if making a thorough list of all of things they shouldn't have done but did (or should've done but didn't).

Talk about someone berating someone else, usually for some reason. "They berated their kid for coming home past curfew again." "When people are trying to lose weight, they berate themselves for eating junk or skipping exercise."

examples:

"As workers came to him for their wages, he berated them for doing shoddy work and refused to pay them, even if the work was perfect."
— Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City, 2003

"[A massive dairy operation called Riverview] had gobbled up more than 50,000 acres in Cochise County to build an expansive network of farms and feedlots... The dairy's wells were... sucking all the water out from beneath her. Vandals have defaced some of the dairy's signage, and residents have shown up at county meetings to berate public officials for supporting the dairy."
— Jake Bittle, Salon, 26 October 2022

has this page helped you understand "berate"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "berate" without saying "reprimand" or "castigate."

try it out:

In Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, the narrator says:

I pulled up the Scoreboard and made myself stare at it for thirty solid minutes while I mentally berated myself.

You've got no one but yourself to blame, I told myself. You let success go to your head. You slacked off on your research. What, did you think lightning would strike twice? That eventually you'd just stumble across the clue you needed to find the Jade Key? Sitting in first place all that time gave you a false sense of security. But you don't have that problem now, do you, a**head?

This is a classic example of berating: it's harsh, it's condemnatory, and it just goes on and on. Do you ever berate yourself like this? I hope not!

Imagine that the narrator is a friend of yours. Instead of berating himself for this failure, what could he be saying or doing that would be kinder to himself, or more productive?

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

This month, our game is Botched Songs!

Check out the botched lyrics to a holiday song, and see if you can give me the botched title. It'll include a form of a word we've studied before.

For example, if the real song is "Jingle Bell Rock," then the botched one might be "Jingle Quell Rock." Or if the real song is "It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas," then the botched one might be "It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like a Chrysalis."

If you need some clues, highlight them to reveal them. And to see the answer, scroll all the way down. Your answer might be different than mine but just as good. Enjoy!

Try this one today:

There'll be whole hams for heisting,
Songs for plagiarizing,
And thievery out in the snow.
There'll be stocking-stuff spillage,
And tales of the pillage
Of Christmas loot long, long ago.
—from "It's the Most _____ Time of the Year"

Clue 1: The word in the blank means… involving lots of theft, as if all hell is breaking loose and you're grabbing whatever you can in greed or desperation.

Clue 2: The word in the blank starts with the letter… P

Clue 3: The word in the blank sounds like… "Wonderful;" but it doesn't rhyme with it; it's just assonant, with the same vowel sounds and the same pattern of stressed or unstressed syllables, like the words "crisis" and "bikeless."

review this word:

1. The opposite of BERATE is

A. ADULATE (to heap lots of praise on someone).
B. GRAVITATE (to move toward something, as if pulled by gravity).
C. TRUNCATE (to cut something short, as if chopping off part of it).

2. Nicola Yoon's narrator in The Sun is Also a Star says, "My dad's a weird guy... He doesn't really talk to anyone except customers. This includes me and Charlie. Unless berating counts as talking. If berating counts, then he's said more to Charlie this past summer and fall than he has in nineteen years." It's probably accurate to say that _____.

A. Charlie endlessly annoys the narrator's dad
B. Charlie often studies with the narrator's dad
C. Charlie understands the narrator's dad better than anyone else

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
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From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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