diatribe
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
I remember thinking her diatribe about the injustice of Hester Prynne’s shunning would segue into the cruelties Charles faced with the goal of inspiring someone to defy the blacklist.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
Anyway, the part of his diatribe about congested urban areas and highbrow people is why I cited that quote, because it is an unobstructed view into his mindset.
From Salon ● Mar. 23, 2026
Altman was about to launch into a diatribe about the commercials that Anthropic, the maker of ChatGPT competitor Claude, rolled out for the Super Bowl.
From Slate ● Feb. 10, 2026
Nacua's diatribe, made on an internet livestream, earned him a $25,000 fine.
From Barron's ● Feb. 3, 2026
She listened to my diatribe, her expression purposefully blase.
From "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman
Many attendees of local public meetings tend to drift into offensive diatribes that have little to do with the matter at hand.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 10, 2025
Others, such as Shawn Michaels, say there's not much difference between the two, and WWE executive Bruce Prichard says Mr McMahon's in-ring diatribes were similar to the ones he'd deliver in the board room.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2024
Her works achieve the difficult feat of synthesizing a coma-inducing dullness with piercingly shrill extended diatribes to create reverse masterpieces worthy of the most risible North Korean propaganda.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2024
Meanwhile, on what Threadsters called the Other Place, people who’d spent years building squadrons of loyal followers saw their blue checks stripped, their diatribes less liked, their feeds infiltrated by bots.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 29, 2024
Several long, incoherent diatribes from gunters whose quest for the egg had clearly driven them insane.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
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.
