Give Someone The Business Meaning

(idiomatic, dated) To harangue, criticize vigorously, berate, or ridicule someone.

Example: 1951, Mickey Spillane, One Lonely Night (1980 Penguin edition):
  â€œI hope you're right, Mike. I hope you aren't giving me the business.”
  I grinned at him. “The only one who can get shafted is me.”
1965, Wilbur Smith, The Dark of the Sun (2008 edition):
  "They wouldn't waste the women. I'd guess they've got them up at the hotel, taking it in turn to give them the business. Four women only – they won't last till morning."
1945 Nov. 26, "Religion: Canterbury Red," Time:
  The Red Dean's utterances, as usual, got on some people's nerves. The irreverent New York Daily News gave him the business, in a full-column editorial, ending; "Nobody curbs these whizbangs in the United States or England, where they are free to be as nutty as their capacities will permit."
1973, Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle (1977 Randlom House edition), ISBN 9780553278866, p. 149:
  Then the kids at school started giving me the business about being a fairy, called me the African Queen.
1982, Elmore Leonard, Cat Chaser, ISBN 9780688163419 [1]:
  They'd switch frequencies and there she'd be like Tokyo Rose, giving them the business. “What you doing here, Marines? You come to kill us? Why? We haven't done nothing to you.”