common scold

American  

noun

1. (in early common law) a habitually rude and brawling woman whose conduct was subject to punishment as a public nuisance.

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Etymology

Origin of common scold

First recorded in 1760–70

Example Sentences

Casting was geared to turn a prostitute into an angel, to repolish a yaking common scold, or curve hard lips into "the kindly weak smiles of a deserving claimant."

From Time Magazine Archive

In the title role, Diana Sands is earth-bound but never God-intoxicated, more of a common scold than an uncommon saint.

From Time Magazine Archive

Catherine Cairns was arrested as a common scold, clapped in jail to mend her talk.

From Time Magazine Archive

With a loud roar of rage, the felicity of phrasing and invaluable candor of a common scold, he immediately started to set things to rights.

From Time Magazine Archive

Roosevelt came, quite naturally, to set the doer above the critic, who, he thought, quickly degenerated into a fault finder and from that into a common scold.

From Theodore Roosevelt; an Intimate Biography by Thayer, William Roscoe