rake over

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rake over (third-person singular simple present rakes over, present participle raking over, simple past and past participle raked over)

1. (idiomatic) To discuss something unpleasant from the past.
   • 1979 April 28, Flame B. James, “Still Private”, in Gay Community News, page 14:

     Tristam Darling [the narrator character] describes Florence by saying, among other things, "She had no bosom, a deficiency I always thought in a woman like a bed without a pillow."(!) Gordon [the author] rakes over every female character in the book in a similar way. No woman is treated positively without being abused.

• dig up

• overrake