rub someone's nose in

From the technique of rubbing a pet's nose in the feces or urine when it makes a mess where it shouldn't.

rub someone's nose in (third-person singular simple present rubs someone's nose in, present participle rubbing someone's nose in, simple past and past participle rubbed someone's nose in)

1. To confront someone with (facts or evidence) that they find unpleasant in order to make them suffer.
   • 2005, Simon Blackburn, Truth: A Guide, →ISBN:

     I want him to rub his nose in the issue. I want a local judgement about a local or specific event, supposed to have happened in a particular region of time and space.

   • 2011, Kristen Ashley, Penmort Castle, →ISBN:

     This weekend you're here to rub his face in one failure, his not securing a Beaumaris to marry one of his stepdaughters, while I rub his nose in the ultimate failure for any Beaumaris, true or not, by informing him he needs to pack his bags and get...the fuck...out.

   • 2011, Pauline Mclynn, Summer in the City, →ISBN:

     Anyone could have told him he'd overdone the dyed hair and should lose a few pounds, but Colin was delighted to be able to rub his nose in the fact that he was meeting someone and merely passing time with Max, if one could believe that was actually his name.

   • 2015, Hugh H. Benson, Clitophon's Challenge: Dialectic in Plato's Meno, Phaedo, and Republic, →ISBN:

     Consequently, Socrates engages in repeated elenctic episodes with the same interlocutor, not to rub his nose in his ignorance and thereby incur his wrath but, rather, at least in part to lead the interlocutor to the recognition of his ignorance.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rub,‎ nose,‎ in.