read a lecture

1. Also, read a lesson. Issue a reprimand, as in Dad read us a lecture after the teacher phoned and complained. The first term dates from the late 1500s, the variant from the early 1600s. Also see read the riot act; teach a lesson.

Example Sentences

He'll read a lecture on an aspect of the woman question he's never thought about.

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How cordially he entertained that faith, what to him it signified in politics, ethics, religion, may be learned by any who will take pains to read a lecture by him on Transcendentalism, recently published by the Free Religious Association.

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I tell thee, Bacon, Oxford makes report, Nay, England, and the Court of Henry says Thou’rt making of a Brazen Head by art, Which shall unfold strange doubts and aphorisms, And read a lecture in philosophy: And, by the help of devils and ghastly fiends, Thou mean’st, ere many years or days be past, To compass England with a wall of brass.

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And has not a pessimist, who possesses this serpentine knack of changing his skin, the right to read a lecture to our pessimists of to-day, who are one and all still in the toils of romanticism?

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Mr. Garrabrant seized upon the occasion to read a lecture to the scouts, telling them to live up to their motto, "Be prepared," and always keep an eye out when in the woods.

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