bone to pick

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

Last year, Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse had a bone to pick with banks, saying they had shut him and his industry out.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Man’s best friend appears to have a bone to pick with U.S.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

On the chance that he does, I have a bone to pick with him – less cosmic, but something that speaks volumes about his probity and fitness for office.

Read more on Salon

A critic has the unfortunate task of sniffing for bones to pick.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

United ended up with a draw and a bone to pick with the referee in forward Taxi Fountas’s first start of the season.

Read more on Washington Post

Related Words

• animosity 
• antagonism 
• bad blood 
• bickering 
• conflict 
• discontent 
• discord 
• disharmony 
• dispute 
• dissension 
• hassle 
• hatred 
• hostility 
• quarrel 
• resentment 
• resistance 
• rivalry 
• strife 
• trouble 
• wrangling www.thesaurus.com