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Adulation is praise and admiration for someone that includes more than they deserve, usually for the purposes of flattery.
Approbation is official praise or approval of something.
Someone who has a bilious personality is highly irritable and bad-tempered.
Someone who has a bristling personality is easily offended, annoyed, or angered.
When you castigate someone, you criticize or punish them severely.
To decry something is to speak against it and find fault with it.
If you denigrate something, you criticize or speak ill of it in a way that shows you think it has little to no value at all.
If you disparage someone or something, you say unpleasant words that show you have no respect for that person or thing.
An elegy is a poem or other piece of writing expressing sadness; it is often about someone who has died.
An encomium strongly praises someone or something via oral or written communication.
A eulogy is a speech or other piece of writing, often part of a funeral, in which someone or something is highly praised.
If you exhort someone to do something, you try very hard to persuade them to do it.
If you expostulate with someone, you express strong disagreement with or disapproval of what that person is doing.
If you extol something or someone, you praise it or them very enthusiastically.
If you fulminate against someone, you speak or write angrily and with heavy criticism about them.
A harangue is a long, scolding speech.
If you inveigh against something, you criticize it very strongly.
A laudatory article or speech expresses praise or admiration for someone or something.
A paean is a piece of writing, verbal expression, or song that expresses enthusiastic praise, admiration, or joy.
A panegyric is a speech or article that praises someone or something a lot.
A peroration is a long speech that sounds impressive but does not have much substance.
If you receive a plaudit, you receive admiration, praise, and approval from someone.
A tirade is a prolonged, verbal outburst that severely criticizes someone or something.
If you vilify people, you write or say bad things about them in an attempt to make them unpopular.
Vituperative remarks are full of hate, anger, and cruel criticism.
Noun
diatribe
DAHY-uh-trahyb
Context
Geraldine believed that it was her civic duty to protest the new construction, so she wrote a diatribe in her long and angry letter to the editor of the local paper. Her strong disapproval of the land development caught everyone’s attention—such a fierce diatribe and written criticism surprised even the editor himself. Geraldine’s furious letter of protest or diatribe against excessive development influenced many other locals in the area, who filed complaints as well.
Quiz:Try again!
What is a diatribe?
A complaint that conveys anger in a short burst—and then quickly becomes apologetic.
A speech or piece of writing that attacks an idea or activity.
A letter to an editor that examines an important and somewhat heated local issue.
Dial a Tribe If you don't like a particular tribe, you could dial that tribe and speak a diatribe against it, all from the convenience of your own home!
Examples
Rather than bothering to even thank his mother, [Michael] Moore launched into an anti-war diatribe that started by asserting that President Bush was an illegitimate president and ended by saying the entire battle in Iraq is phony.
—
Newsweek
The futility of efforts to permanently silence Bin Laden was brought home Friday when he released his first video message since 2004, a 26-minute, anti-U.S. diatribe.
—
Harper's Magazine
When he launched into a diatribe and used a vulgar expression, the mic was cut off and he was carried off to the applause of many in the audience, all the while resisting the police.
—
The Christian Science Monitor
To level a diatribe against another person is to “thoroughly rub or pound” them with angry words, trying to drive home the point that you are very displeased.
Word Theater
Howard Stern on The Late Show with David Letterman Howard Stern delivers a diatribe.
The panel shows a small video clip of either the word in actual use or a scene that represents the meaning of a word. This not only breaks up the monotony of studying words but also provides another avenue to strengthen word meaning. Enjoy!
