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
There's A Word for That
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You Name It: Eponyms
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National Spelling Bee '14: Prelims Round 2
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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.
His underlying idea isn’t a jeremiad against AI as a whole, but that the market has detached from reality.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 28, 2025
I don’t intend this column to be either a jeremiad or a lambasting of marijuana.
From Salon • Dec. 31, 2024
But the HBO show is a savage jeremiad, inspiring sympathy for its characters only insofar as they’re prisoners of familial pathology.
From Seattle Times • Jul. 29, 2022
A heavy dousing of rain kept a share of the seats empty at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night, with at least one critic considering filing a scathing jeremiad against his own worthless umbrella.
From Washington Post • Apr. 8, 2022
Sure I was in a proper phrensy now, nor dreamed myself a target for the high gods' laughter, where I vapoured and strode and shouted aloud my moral jeremiad.
From The Little Red Foot by Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
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.
