Dutch uncle

American  

noun

Sometimes Offensive.

1. a person who criticizes or reproves with unsparing severity and frankness.

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Dutch uncle British  

noun

1. informal a person who criticizes or reproves frankly and severely

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Dutch uncle Idioms  

1. A stern, candid critic or adviser, as in When I got in trouble with the teacher again, the principal talked to me like a Dutch uncle. This expression, often put as talk to one like a Dutch uncle, presumably alludes to the sternness and sobriety attributed to the Dutch. [Early 1800s]

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Sensitive Note

Because Dutch is used here to describe someone manifesting the opposite of warm, affectionate, typically avuncular behavior, this term is sometimes perceived as insulting to or by the Dutch. See also Dutch.

Etymology

Origin of Dutch uncle

First recorded in 1820–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Dutch uncle

Having a Dutch uncle has won Peapod its first operating profit since the high-tech home-delivery service was founded in 1989.

From Time Magazine Archive

They could have kept their heads, and if they were any good they could and would have talked like a Dutch uncle to these pathetic people stumbling to their ruin.

From Time Magazine Archive

Last week 69-year-old Jonkheer Dirk Jan de Geer, leader of The Netherlands' Christian Historical Party, talked like a Dutch uncle to his parliamentary colleagues.

From Time Magazine Archive

Last week the highly respected Henry Kaufman, a partner in Salomon Bros, who often serves as Wall Street's Dutch uncle, called for the declaration of a "national economic emergency."

From Time Magazine Archive

Pesach had a Dutch uncle, but as he had never talked like him Alte alone knew.

From Children of the Ghetto A Study of a Peculiar People by Zangwill, Israel