to teach a lesson
1
3.0
- idiom
:
dar una lección
- As an introduction to these thorny issues, we teach a lesson to mark ALA's Choose Privacy Week.
It is the same evil that says whites are inferior and they need to be taught a lesson.
- It is the same evil that says whites are inferior and they need to be taught a lesson.
- I feel like I was taught a lesson about like not being able to trust, you know, trust no one.
Examples
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The alchemist's error taught a lesson crucial to the rapidly changing Umwelt of Enlightenment.
Academic text (2015) -
She wanted to teach a lesson about honesty, so she shared her own mistakes with the class.
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So they could easily arrest me, put me in prison, put me on trial and teach a lesson to the other journalists.
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Where do you make a distinction between what is good for the long term and how to teach a lesson for the short term?
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People loved Aesop's fables because they were short, easy to remember, and they taught a lesson or moral.
Fiction book (2000) -
While teaching a lesson on Westward Expansion, Mr. Kent noticed his students struggling to understand concepts presented in the textbook.
Academic text (2015) -
However, Elcho was clearly interested in deploying the painting's decayed state to teach a lesson about Reynolds's practice in general.
Academic text (2015) -
The coach decided to teach a lesson to the players by making them run laps after their poor performance.
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To teach a lesson on the importance of kindness, the teacher organized a community service project.
Synonyms
139
4.2
Punish someone so they learn not to do it again
How Severe
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'teach' (to cause to learn) with 'lesson' (something learned), so the general idea of causing someone to learn is directly derivable from the parts. However, the conventional sense often implies a corrective or punitive experience rather than literal instruction; that metaphorical/extended meaning is only partially predictable and typically needs prior exposure for full interpretation.
Etymology
Teach a lesson comes from the simple picture of a teacher who teaches a lesson to a student; a sharp punishment or hard experience acts like that teacher and 'teaches a lesson' to someone. That's why it means 'to give someone an experience that changes their behavior or teaches something important'.