jeremiad
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
From French jérémiade, from Jérémie, from Latin Ieremias, from Hebrew ירמיה (“Jeremiah”).
Jeremiah was a biblical prophet who lamented the moral state of Judah and predicted her downfall.
Pronunciation [edit]
Noun [edit]
jeremiad (plural jeremiads)
- A long speech or prose work that bitterly laments the state of society and its morals, and often contains a prophecy of its coming downfall.
- 1895 — Mary Gaunt, The Moving Finger, A Digger's Christmas
- "Father Maguire," he said in the broadest of Cork brogues, without the ghost of a smile on his grave Irish face, "is it a song yez wantin'? Well, thin, it's just a jeremiad I 'd be singin' yez, an' not another song at all, at all."
- 2006: The Columbus Dispatch, May 5
- “This is precisely the manner of Balkanization that Schlesinger cautioned us about in his prescient jeremiad on multiculturalism, The Disuniting of America.”
- 2007, The Guardian, [1]
- Cannes is smacking its lips in anticipation of filmmaker and provocateur Michael Moore's latest jeremiad against the US administration, which receives its premiere at the film festival today.
- 1895 — Mary Gaunt, The Moving Finger, A Digger's Christmas
Synonyms [edit]
- (speech or prose work lamenting society): lament, lamentation
- See also Wikisaurus:diatribe
Translations [edit]
long speech or prose work
