jeremiad

noun

jer·e·mi·ad ˌjer-ə-ˈmī-əd

-ˌad

: 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 jérémiade.

Examples of jeremiad in a Sentence

a jeremiad against the political apathy shown by so many young people

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Their jeremiads have scared so many people out of some amazing gains. —

Julie Coleman, CNBC, 8 Oct. 2024 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 See all Example Sentences for jeremiad