Word of the Day

: July 27, 2021

jeremiad

noun jair-uh-MYE-ud

What It Means

: a prolonged lamentation or complaint; also : a cautionary or angry harangue

jeremiad in Context

The news story was a scathing jeremiad against the invasion of privacy on celebrities.

"We can expect a volley of jeremiads against wind power, as perhaps half that fleet stopped spinning. But with perhaps more than 30 gigawatts of thermal generating capacity tripping offline, and wind power producing about five gigawatts less than planned, this disaster clearly stretches, as Texas' grid operator said, 'across fuel types.'" — Liam Denning, The St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press, 18 Feb. 2021

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.