Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also bawl, ball out) to scold, to reprimand, to criticize; all such attacks are delivered in a loud voice.

1810		‘Katty O’Lynch’ in Coll. of English Ballads 109: The next time we met, she ball’d out in a pet, / Arrah! Paddy, you’ll soon drive me crazy.
1905		J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:i 69: bawl out, v. To reprimand, expose. ‘He bawled me out!’.
1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 126: He’ll wisht he never come ’round tryin’ to bawl out one of the his best customers when I git there.
1913–14		E. O’Neill Warnings in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 83: Why don’t you ball out Pop?
1914		R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 43: I says Now I guess you’re sorry you didn’t let me hit. That sent him right up in the air and he bawled me awful.
1915		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 16: Remember how he balled his wiff out?
1916		J. Lait ‘The Septagon’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 23: I don’t know where you get that stuff to bawl me out like that.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 65: The way they bawl out the nurses.
1930		S.J. Perelman letter 31 Oct. in Crowther Don’t Tread on Me (1987) 7: Along comes a sergeant mad as hell. Bawls out the cop for being off his beat.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 194: If you bawl at me I’ll ring you off.
1940		E. Ferber ‘You’re Not the Type’ in One Basket (1947) 527: Schatzy would bawl the bejinks out of her.
1949		R. Service ‘Yellow’ in Songs of a Sun Lover (1955) 31: I should have bawled the bastard out: / A yellow dog he slew; / But worse, he proved beyond a doubt / That – I was yellow too.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 35: Drowning his desire to bawl Jake out.
1965		G. Melly Owning Up (1974) 237: He came down into the dressing room in a very bad temper and began to bawl out Paddy.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 80: The teachers’d pick on us, we’d [...] go home and tell our father and he’d go round and bawl them out for being racist bastards.
1983		S. May No Exceptions in Best Radio Plays (1984) 123: Knew how to handle Roger, though. Bawl him out and he’d go.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 46: Labels liked to work with big, stroppy managers who’d bawl them out and bully them.
2000		Guardian G2 14 Feb. 4: She’s the one who bawls them out.

2. to announce oneself.

1901		W. Irwin Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum XX n.p.: ’Twas there before the Rainbow Club that Mame Bawled herself out as Murphy’s finansy.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 112: He who had been bawled out for two years as the most refined, cultivated and scholarly Youth east or west of the Alleghenies turned out to be the same as all the others.
1912		Ade Knocking the Neighbors 152: As soon as Father was bawled out as a Millionaire, it was up to Mother to join a new kind of Club.