RIOT ACT • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Riot act

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/rˈaɪət ækt/ Listen

Riot act

noun

A vigorous reprimand.

A former English law requiring mobs to disperse after a magistrate reads the law to them.

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Etymology of 'Riot act'

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"Riot act" Quotes from Famous Books

... the occurrence. Master Johnson wanted a little play, and rode licence-hunting; was met with impertinent shouts of "Joe, Joe," and reported a riot. Daddy Rede must share in the favourite game, and rode to crack the riot act. The red-coats turned out. The diggers mobbed together among the holes, and several shots were fired at the traps. The conclusion: Three of the ring-leaders of the mob had been pounced upon, and ...

— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... and began to read the riot act, but Leander said: "Let him be! He gits tired o' being fussed over. You're at him about something or other the whole ...

— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... me stale and wilted greens when I had ordered fresh; he's send me gutta percha beans, all string and little flesh. And when I journeyed to his store to read the riot act, three score apologies or more he'd offer for the fact. That doggone clerk of his, he'd say, had got the order wrong; and always, in the same old way, he'd sing the same old song. He seemed to think apologies ...

— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason

... long subsisted between him and Mr. Washburne. Mr. Richardson of Illinois followed his colleague, and expressed his disgust with even the introduction of the subject in Congress. He felt that our armies would gain more renown and secure greater victories if the "Riot Act" could be read, and both Houses of Congress dispersed to their homes at the ...

— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

Words linked to "Riot act" : reprimand, reproof, criminal law, rebuke, reproval, jurisprudence, law, reprehension