jeremiad

jeremiad
noun
jer·;e·;mi·;ad ;jer-;-;m;-;d  -;ad
Synonyms of jeremiad
: a prolonged lamentation or complaint
also : a cautionary or angry harangue
the warnings became jeremiads against the folly of overemphasis on science and technology at the expense of man's subjective and emotional life
—Ada Louise Huxtable


Did you know?
Jeremiah was a Jewish prophet, who lived from about 650 to 570 B.C. and spent his days lambasting the Hebrews for their false worship and social injustice and denouncing the king for his selfishness, materialism, and inequities. When not calling on his people to quit their wicked ways, he was lamenting his own lot; a portion of the biblical Book of Jeremiah is devoted to his "confessions," a series of lamentations on the hardships endured by a prophet with an unpopular message. Nowadays, English speakers use Jeremiah for a pessimistic person and jeremiad for the way these Jeremiahs carry on. The word jeremiad was borrowed from the French, who coined it as j;r;miade.

Synonyms
diatribe
harangue
philippic
rant
tirade
Examples of jeremiad in a Sentence
a jeremiad against the political apathy shown by so many young people
Recent Examples on the Web
Occasionally, these jeremiads leak into mainstream culture and the mass media begin to reverberate with a warning: Change your ways, Americans, or there will be hell to pay.
—James Morone, Foreign Affairs, 16 June 2015
Tocqueville rose in the assembly on January 29, 1848, to deliver a jeremiad.
—Dan McLaughlin, National Review, 26 Dec. 2023
In his famous jeremiad against hackneyed political rhetoric, Orwell pointed to a pernicious cycle.
—Washington Post, 11 Nov. 2020
This issue is particularly famous for Mona Eltahaway's jeremiad against Arab male culture, and their attitudes toward women.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 29 Apr. 2012