From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishgive somebody hellgive somebody hellinformal not politeTELL somebody OFF to treat someone in an unpleasant or angry way She didn’t like him, and gave him hell at the slightest opportunity. → hell
Examples from the Corpus
give somebody hell• My mom gave him hell, told him to never say things like that in front of us again.• I'd better go. My wife will give me hell if I'm late home again.• Caroline would give me hell for evermore if she thought I'd mistreated her best friend. 