(skōld)
verb scold·ed,
scold·ing,
scolds verb, transitive To reprimand or criticize harshly and usually angrily.
verb, intransitive To reprove or criticize openly.
noun One who persistently nags or criticizes: “As a critic gets older, he or she usually grows more tetchy and . . . may even become a big-league scold” (James Wolcott).
Related Forms:
Word History: A scold is not usually a poet and a scolding rarely sounds like poetry to the one being scolded, but it seems that the word
scold has a poetic background. It is probable that
scold, first recorded in Middle English in a work probably composed around 1150, has a Scandinavian source related to the Old Icelandic word
skāld, “poet.” Middle English
scolde may in fact mean “a minstrel,” but of that we are not sure. However, its Middle English meanings, “a ribald abusive person” and “a shrewish chiding woman,” may be related to
skāld, as shown by the senses of some of the Old Icelandic words derived from
skāld. Old Icelandic
skāldskapr, for example, meant “poetry” in a good sense but also “a libel in verse,” while
skāld-stöng meant “a pole with imprecations or charms scratched on it.” It would seem that libelous cursing verse was a noted part of at least some poets' productions and that this association with poets passed firmly along with the Scandinavian borrowing into English.
