give stick

From the literal sense of beating someone or something with a stick (especially a hockey stick).

give stick (third-person singular simple present gives stick, present participle giving stick, simple past gave stick, past participle given stick)

1. To abuse, insult, or denigrate.

• In the phrase “give stick”, give is the verb and stick is the direct object. Like most uses of give, this one requires either an indirect object, as in “he gave me stick”, or a preposition object with to, as in “he gave stick to his critics”.

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:give stick.