jeremiad
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of jeremiad
1770–80; Jeremi(ah) + -ad 1 in reference to Jeremiah's Lamentations
Explanation
If a kid who's away at summer camp mails his parents a jeremiad, it means that he sends them a long, sad list of complaints. Use the noun jeremiad to talk about any list of woes, especially a lengthy, mournful one. Many letters to the editors of newspapers and comments on websites are jeremiads, and someone addressing a city council or school board might make a verbal jeremiad — speaking for a long time about their many grievances. The word jeremiad was coined in 1700s France, as jérémiade, and it was a reference to the Old Testament's "Lamentations of Jeremiah."
Vocabulary lists containing jeremiad
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“People think she came out of nowhere to deliver this Jeremiad of ‘Silent Spring,’ but she had three massive best sellers about the sea before that,” McKibben says.
From New York Times • Sep. 21, 2012
The one wrote a Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham.
From The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4 by Poe, Edgar Allan
Fancy a Jeremiad preached by a man in a fur coat!
From Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions Volume 2 by Harris, Frank
How candidly and meekly you took my Jeremiad on your severity to second-class men.
From Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 1 by Darwin, Francis, Sir
Mr. Mackay seems to expect that his Jeremiad on tobacco-chewing and spitting will act in America as St. Patrick's spells did on the vermin of Ireland.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 23, September, 1859 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
