Word of the Day ·

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tirade

UK/taɪˈɹeɪd/UK/tɪˈɹeɪd/US/ˈtaɪɹeɪd/obsolete/tɪˈɹɑːd/

noun

What it means

  1. A long, angry or violent speech.

    release a tirade

    4 more examples

    come out with a tirade

    a lengthy tirade against one's rivals

    Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.

    1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

    “[…] They talk of you as if you were Croesus—and I expect the beggars sponge on you unconscionably.” And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes.

    1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

    Synonyms: diatribe, admonition, condemnation, diatribe, dithyramb, harangue, impugnation, j'accuse

  2. A section of verse concerning a single theme.

    Synonyms: laisse

In a sentence

come out with a tirade

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European*der-
  2. Proto-Germanic*teranąbor.?
  3. Vulgar Latin*tīrāre
  4. Old Frenchtirer
  5. Middle Frenchtirer
  6. Frenchtirer
  7. Frenchtirade
  8. Englishtirade

Borrowed from French tirade (“monologue, speech, tirade”).

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