breast-beating

American  

[brest-bee-ting] / ˈbrɛstˌbi tɪŋ /

noun

1. a loud and demonstrative display of grief, remorse, or the like.

   The authorities indulged in a great deal of breast-beating about traffic accidents but failed to pass new driving laws.

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adjective

1. characterized by or involving breast-beating.

Other Word Forms

• breast-beater noun

Etymology

Origin of breast-beating

First recorded in 1950–55

Example Sentences

Business leaders may have calculated that Trump’s breast-beating about imposing higher tariffs was just talk, or part of a negotiating strategy.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 4, 2025

Far too rarely does contemporary fiction and nonfiction provide the needed escape, regularly being gloomy, earnest and replete with finger-pointing and breast-beating.

From Washington Post • Mar. 31, 2021

At the other extreme to Gloria’s breast-beating lurked October’s title track, an austere, suitably autumnal-sounding piano ballad in which Bono’s vocals arrive only in the final 50 seconds.

From The Guardian • May 21, 2020

That is also, not coincidentally, the same stance that most of the media has taken, albeit after a brief bout of breast-beating and hysteria.

From Salon • Apr. 5, 2019

Red-Eye abruptly ceased his breast-beating and tooth-grinding, and ran across the timber-jam to the shore.

From Before Adam by London, Jack