riot

To scold, reprimand, or reprove one severely for an error or mistake. I was read the riot act by my boss last week for messing up the accounting software. I know Mary messed up, but there was no need to read her the riot act for it.

That which contains an array of many different, contrasting colors. I love watching the sun go down here. The whole horizon turns into a riot of colors. Her paintings are typically riots of color, so the stark, minimalistic palette in this work is especially striking.

To act in a chaotic manner. As soon as the alarm went off, everyone in the room ran riot.

Fig. to give someone a severe scolding. The manager read me the riot act for coming in late. The teacher read the students the riot act for their failure to do their assignments.

Cliché a selection of many bright colors. The landscape was a riot of color each autumn.

to go awry; to go bad; to turn bad; to go into a frenzy. (From a Malay word meaning to run wild in a violent frenzy.) Our plan ran amok. He ran amuck early in the school year and never quite got back on the track.

Fig. to get out of control. The dandelions have run riot in our lawn. The children ran wild at the birthday party and had to be taken home.

Warn or reprimand forcefully or severely, as in When he was caught throwing stones at the windows, the principal read him the riot act . This term alludes to an actual British law, the Riot Act of 1714, which required reading a proclamation so as to disperse a crowd; those who did not obey within an hour were guilty of a felony. [First half of 1800s]

Also, run riot or wild . Behave in a frenzied, out-of-control, or unrestrained manner. For example, I was afraid that if I left the toddler alone she would run amok and have a hard time calming down , or The weeds are running riot in the lawn, or The children were running wild in the playground. Amok comes from a Malay word for "frenzied" and was adopted into English, and at first spelled amuck, in the second half of the 1600s. Run riot dates from the early 1500s and derives from an earlier sense, that is, a hound's following an animal scent. Run wild alludes to an animal reverting to its natural, uncultivated state; its figurative use dates from the late 1700s.

If someone in authority reads the riot act or reads someone the riot act, they angrily tell someone off for having done something stupid or wrong. I'm glad you read the riot act to Billy. He's still a kid, you know. He still needs to be told what to do. At the weekly cabinet meeting the following day, an enraged Mr Schroder read his ministers the riot act. Note: The Riot Act was a law passed in Britain in 1715. It made it an offence for a group of twelve or more people to refuse to break up and leave if someone in authority read them the relevant section of the Act.

To warn or reprimand energetically or forcefully: The teacher read the riot act to the rowdy class.

To issue a severe reprimand. The term comes from a British law, the Riot Act of 1714, which required literally reading aloud a proclamation in order to disperse a crowd (defined as a gathering of twelve or more persons). The proclamation stated, “Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons being assembled immediately to disperse themselves and peaceably to depart to their habitations.” Whoever did not obey within an hour was guilty of a felony punishable by law. By the mid-nineteenth century reading the riot act was used figuratively for a vigorous scolding, as Dickens used it in Barnaby Rudge (1840): “The Riot Act was read.”

To act without restraint or control; to overrun, to grow unrestrainedly. The earliest use of this term dates from the early sixteenth century and appears in a book on farming, John Fitzherbert’s The Boke of Husbandry (1523): “Breake thy tenure, and ren ryot at large.” It is the primary meaning of riot—unruliness and disorder—that was being transferred here and has been so used ever since. “Ye suffer your Tongues to run ryot,” wrote Bishop Joseph Hall (Works, 1656).

Criticize harshly. A 1725 British Act of Parliament provided that a magistrate could tell any gathering of a dozen or more people who were creating a civil disturbance to disperse by reading an official statement to that effect. Failure to heed the warning led to arrest (the law remained in effect until 1973). Used popularly, the phrase became the equivalent of “getting a good chewing out,” even if only one person was “read the riot act.”