diatribe
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of diatribe
1575–85; < Latin diatriba < Greek diatribḗ pastime, study, discourse, derivative of diatríbein to rub away ( dia- dia- + tríbein to rub)
Explanation
It's pretty overwhelming when you ask your friend a seemingly innocuous question, like "Do you like hot dogs?" and she unleashes a diatribe about the evils of eating meat. A diatribe is an angry, critical speech. This noun has its roots in the Greek diatribē, "pastime or lecture," from diatrībein, "to waste time or wear away," combining dia-, "thoroughly," and trībein, "to rub." So the origin of the word diatribe is connected to both serious study and the spending or wasting of time. With most diatribes, the speaker thinks he's well informed and knows something the listener doesn't, while to most listeners the diatribe is so angry and unhinged that it's just a waste of time.
Vocabulary lists containing diatribe
100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
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"The Ransom of Red Chief" by O. Henry
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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.
But Levinson’s screenplay, with its carefully engineered pivots from Defensive Monologue A to Overlong Diatribe B, has none of Cassavetes’ ragged spontaneity.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 22, 2021
In the episode "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife," Marge writes a romance novel, and Homer realizes he'll have to read it.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 14, 2015
Diatribe against the banking system by British Etcher-Cartoonist Will Dyson, with illustrations superior to text.
From Time Magazine Archive
Diatribe on Free Will, 105, 167. edits New Testament, 147, 564 f. and Zwingli, 149 f.,
From The Age of the Reformation by Smith, Preserved
Voltaire resolved to set his mark, a mark never to be effaced, on the forehead of Maupertuis, and wrote the exquisitely ludicrous Diatribe of Doctor Akakia.
From Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 2 by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
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.
