0 the act of speaking angrily to someone because you disapprove of their behaviour:
1 showing that you disapprove of someone's behaviour:
They received an average of one encouragement for every two scoldings.
If the scolding was meant to put him in his place, it failed.
There were verbal scoldings, but that was about it.
“I gave him the money,” my mom tells me anxiously over the phone, like a child who’s about to get a scolding.
She was turned off by the preachy, scolding tone of work she saw.
