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Berate and Rate
People have berated things—and each other—for time immemorial, but the word berate has only been known to English users since the mid-1500s. Before that, if you wanted to angrily rebuke, say, an outlaw for impersonating a fortune teller in order to steal the golden hubcaps off your royal carriage, you would rate them. Berate simply added the prefix be- to the existing verb rate, which is distinct from the rate that means “to value or esteem.” While the more familiar rate comes ultimately from Latin, the origins of the less common “scolding” rate are obscure.
Examples of berate in a Sentence
Randall Colburn, EW.com, 7 Mar. 2025
President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance responded by berating the Ukrainian leader on camera.
—Simon Shuster/kyiv, TIME, 7 Mar. 2025
And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, sat on an Oval Office couch, mostly silent, as Trump and Vance berated the Ukrainian leader.
—NPR, 7 Mar. 2025
After the Oval Office spat, Trump continued to berate Zelenskyy on social media, with the president and some of his team suggesting that Ukraine’s leader could or should be ousted from office.
—Rebecca Shabad, NBC News, 5 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for berate
Cite this Entry
“Berate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/berate. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.
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berate
verb
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