rail (redirected from railing)

rail against someone or something

to complain vehemently about someone or something. Why are you railing against me? What did I do? Leonard is railing against the tax increase again.

See also: against

rail at someone (about something)

to complain loudly or violently to someone about something. Jane railed at the payroll clerk about not having received her check. I am not responsible for your problems. Don't rail at me!

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be as thin as a rake  (British, American & Australian) also be as thin as a rail (mainly American)

to be very thin He eats like a horse and yet he's as thin as a rake. She's as thin as a rail from all that running.

See also: rake, thin

be back on the rails  (British)

to be making progress once more The minister emerged from three hours of discussions, confident that the talks are now back on the rails. (British)

See also: back

go off the rails  (informal)

to start behaving strangely or in a way that is not acceptable to society He went off the rails in his twenties and started living on the streets. By the law of probabilities if you have five kids, one of them's going to go off the rails.

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go off the rails also run off the rails

to be spoiled by bad management Things were going off the rails here, and no one was getting any work done. This is a well-intentioned system that has been run off the rails.

Etymology: from the idea of a train leaving the rails (metal bars) it travels on