any of the orations delivered by Demosthenes, the Athenian orator, in the 4th century b.c., against Philip, king of Macedon.
any of the 14 orations delivered by Cicero against Marc Antony (44-43 b.c.).
(lowercase) any speech or discourse of bitter denunciation.
First recorded in 1560–70; from Latin Philippicus, from Greek Philippikós; see Philip, -ic
A philippic is a bitter rant against someone or something. Unfortunately your impassioned philippic condemning your parents’ midnight curfew rule only resulted in you being grounded for a week. The word philippic originates from the Greek word philippikos, the name given to the speeches of the famous Greek orator Demosthenes, who warned the Athenians against Philip II of Macedon. The Greeks didn’t listen to Demosthenes, however, and then Philip and his son Alexander the Great ended up bringing all of Greece under Macedonian control. Too bad for the Athenians!
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It shows also that up to this period, a few months previous to the envenomed hatred of the second Philippic, Antony and Cicero were presumed to be on terms of intimate friendship.
From The Life of Cicero Volume II. by Trollope, Anthony
Then it was that he spoke the third Philippic, and in the evening of the same day he spoke the fourth to the people.
From The Life of Cicero Volume II. by Trollope, Anthony
Dear Sir,—I have to thank you for Mr. Pickering's elaborate Philippic against Mr. Adams, Gerry, Smith, and myself; and I have delayed the acknowledgment until I could read it and make some observations on it.
From Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States by Van Buren, Martin
Alcibiades is replaced by the Mark Antony of Cicero's Philippic.
From A Problem in Greek Ethics Being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion by Symonds, John Addington
"But," said Sir John, "you forget that Akenside professedly adopts the language of Cicero in his second Philippic."
From Coelebs In Search of a Wife by More, Hannah
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.
