Bitter personal description of one issuing reprimands, reportedly (3-4)
I believe the answer is:
ice-cold
'bitter' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
I don't understand how the rest of the clue works.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ice-cold that I've seen before include "Chilled" , "Freezing" , ". . . . . . . in Alex (film)" , "Frozen" , "Straight from the freezer" .)