preach at

preach at (one)

To deliver a stern, moralistic lecture to one (about something). I wish you would stop preaching at me about my spending habits, Dad. The priest spends every Sunday preaching at us about the same old sins and vices.
See also: preach
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

preach at someone

to lecture or moralize at someone. Don't preach at me! I don't need any of your moralizing. I really don't wish to be preached at.
See also: preach
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • preach at (one)
  • preach to
  • preach to (one)
  • preach about
  • preach about (something)
  • nag
  • nag at
  • nag at (one)
  • be preaching to the converted
  • convert
References in periodicals archive
We should care because female professors are even now teaching homiletics to Catholic seminarians, though they themselves are forbidden to preach at Mass.
I look out before I preach at all those hungry people and I can almost see it in their faces: "Don't let us down again.
For a few years I was honored to preach at LSTC's contemplative Eucharist on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Holy Week.
In April 1926, a sympathetic profile of Utley appeared nationally in The American Magazine, estimating that "ten thousand persons, mostly men, have expressed a desire to lead Christian lives as the result of her preaching in fifty-odd cities." (27) Anticipating a fall revival campaign in New York, Straton invited Utley to preach at Calvary often during the summer of 1926; each time, a report of her sermon appeared the next day in New York Times.
Evidently, he was ready to preach at the drop of a hat, with generic outlines prepared to guide his remarks at such standard events as the elevation of candidates to the episcopacy.
Although his position as penitentiary required him to root out heretics and preach at executions, he seems to have been drawn to the views of Martin Bucer, also known for flexibility in matters of dogma.
In some--but not all--dioceses the deacon is given the faculty to preach at his ordination, although it may be rescinded by the bishop.
He recorded an occasion when he was asked to preach at an associational meeting.
Richard was, and remains, my friend, and in extending this extraordinary gesture he broke with all convention in inviting me, a Baptist, to preach at his consecration in St.
Louis, for instance, Archbishop Justin Rigali in 1999 told the Dominican-run Aquinas Institute of Theology that Dominican sisters could no longer preach at the institute's eucharistic services -- a ruling that has been followed.
BISHOP STEVEN Charleston, a Native American Choctaw and outspoken advocate for healing the long-lasting after-effects of early Christian colonizers on North American native peoples, will preach at the opening service of General Synod in July.
But a decade earlier, when the Vatican itself issued the Directory for Masses with Children, it wisely noted that "with the consent of the pastor or rector of the church, one of the [other, nonordained] adults may speak to the children after the gospel, especially if the priest finds it difficult to adapt himself to the mentality of children." If it is helpful to encourage the full, conscious, and active participation of children in the Mass to have qualified laypeople preach at Mass, would it not likewise be helpful for others in the church as well?
Weakland states: "When lay persons are authorized to preach at a sacramental liturgy, they either preach in addition to a brief homily by a priest or deacon or in place of the homily when there is a serious reason.
One way of doing this is finding a way for women to preach at our eucharistic celebrations.
Most important, the Milwaukee guidelines permit laypeople to preach at Sunday and weekday Masses, marriages, funerals, and other sacramental services if done with permission of the bishop.