English

Noun

jeremiad ‎(plural jeremiads)

1. 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,

     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.

Synonyms

• (speech or prose work lamenting society): lament, lamentation
• See also Wikisaurus:diatribe

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