tirade
Americannoun
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a long angry speech or denunciation
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rare prosody a speech or passage dealing with a single theme
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of tirade
1795–1805; < French: literally, a stretch, (continuous) pulling < Italian tirata, noun use of feminine of tirato, past participle of tirare to draw, pull, fire (a shot), of obscure origin
Explanation
A tirade is a speech, usually consisting of a long string of violent, emotionally charged words. Borrow and lose your roommate’s clothes one too many times, and you can bet you’ll be treated to a heated tirade. The noun tirade is related to the Italian word tirata, which means "volley." So imagine a very angry person lobbing harsh words and strings of profanity in your direction when you want to remember what tirade means. Although, tirades don't necessarily have to include bad words — any long, drawn out speech or epic declaration can be called a tirade.
Vocabulary lists containing tirade
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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100 Words to Make You Sound Smart
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The Diary of a Young Girl
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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.
See Examples For:
Last week Raice summoned the foreign staff to a virtual meeting and delivered a 15-minute tirade that Status obtained on audio and later released in full.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2026
I fired up the AI and let loose a good long tirade about my flaky colleague…and felt as lousy as I always do when I give voice to my most judgmental instincts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026
Tyson Fury says his fight with Anthony Joshua "doesn't look like it's going to happen" in a verbal tirade against his British rival and promoter Eddie Hearn posted on social media.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
The tirade was so pathetic and noneventful that most networks didn’t bother to air it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
Stick broke through Father’s tirade with a calm breath.
From "The Rock and the River" by Kekla Magoon
The crude social-media tirades don’t earn new supporters; they repel potential ones.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026
In a better world, perhaps he’d have had a change of heart and repented of his increasingly intolerant tirades.
From Salon ● May 8, 2026
It’s also the sort of thing that you could imagine Musk spinning out over, causing him to go on late-night X tirades about.
From Slate ● Apr. 22, 2025
Eye-popping tirades in his native Serbian towards them were a regular sight.
From BBC ● Jan. 23, 2025
“Pudge is done with staring out the window, and I’m done with going on tirades about it, but he’s a terrible teacher, and you won’t convince me otherwise.”
From "Looking for Alaska" by John Green
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
