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Synonyms

bone to pick

Cultural  

  1. Having a “bone to pick with someone” means having a grievance that needs to be talked out: “I have a bone to pick with you, Wallace; I heard how you criticized me at the meeting last night.”

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Adapting a classic novel for the stage, the writer had a few bones to pick with the heroic figure of Atticus Finch.

From The New Yorker

It has a sackful of bones to pick with the modern world as a whole.

From New York Times

I'm with you on the deal, for between us I've got a bone to pick with Shaughnessy myself and I want to see that story in tomorrow's paper.

From Project Gutenberg

Upon the ground are crawling captive kings, without feet or hands, to whom he flings bones to pick.

From Project Gutenberg

There is always a bone to pick with a lover.

From Project Gutenberg

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.