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  Philippic

  noun

  any of the orations delivered by Demosthenes, the Athenian orator, in the 4th century b.c., against Philip, king of Macedon.
• philippic
  philippic

  noun

  a bitter or impassioned speech of denunciation; invective

Philippic

American  

[fi-lip-ik] / fɪˈlɪp ɪk /

noun

1. any of the orations delivered by Demosthenes, the Athenian orator, in the 4th century b.c., against Philip, king of Macedon.

2. any of the 14 orations delivered by Cicero against Marc Antony (44-43 b.c.).

3. (lowercase) any speech or discourse of bitter denunciation.

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philippic British  

/ fɪˈlɪpɪk /

noun

1. a bitter or impassioned speech of denunciation; invective

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Etymology

Origin of Philippic

First recorded in 1560–70; from Latin Philippicus, from Greek Philippikós; see Philip, -ic

Explanation

A philippic is a bitter rant against someone or something. Unfortunately your impassioned philippic condemning your parents’ midnight curfew rule only resulted in you being grounded for a week. The word philippic originates from the Greek word philippikos, the name given to the speeches of the famous Greek orator Demosthenes, who warned the Athenians against Philip II of Macedon. The Greeks didn’t listen to Demosthenes, however, and then Philip and his son Alexander the Great ended up bringing all of Greece under Macedonian control. Too bad for the Athenians!

Example Sentences

I will not treat my readers to any of these specimens of the art Philippic, but will confine myself to a few business excerpts instead, taken indiscriminately from the New York and Boston papers.

From Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States by Semmes, Raphael

Then it was that he spoke the third Philippic, and in the evening of the same day he spoke the fourth to the people.

From The Life of Cicero Volume II. by Trollope, Anthony

"But," said Sir John, "you forget that Akenside professedly adopts the language of Cicero in his second Philippic."

From Coelebs In Search of a Wife by More, Hannah

Alcibiades is replaced by the Mark Antony of Cicero's Philippic.

From A Problem in Greek Ethics Being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion by Symonds, John Addington

Dear Sir,—I have to thank you for Mr. Pickering's elaborate Philippic against Mr. Adams, Gerry, Smith, and myself; and I have delayed the acknowledgment until I could read it and make some observations on it.

From Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States by Van Buren, Martin