jeremiad

Etymology

From French jérémiade, from Jérémie, from Latin Ieremias, from Hebrew ירמיה‎ (“Jeremiah”).

Jeremiah was a biblical prophet who lamented the moral state of Judah and predicted her downfall.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /ˌdʒɛɹ.əˈmaɪ.əd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪəd

Noun

jeremiad (plural jeremiads)

1. A long speech or prose work that bitterly laments the state of society and its morals, and often contains a prophecy of its coming downfall.
   • 1895 — Mary Gaunt, The Moving Finger, A Digger's Christmas

     "Father Maguire," he said in the broadest of Cork brogues, without the ghost of a smile on his grave Irish face, "is it a song yez wantin'? Well, thin, it's just a jeremiad I 'd be singin' yez, an' not another song at all, at all."

   • 2006: The Columbus Dispatch, May 5

     “This is precisely the manner of Balkanization that Schlesinger cautioned us about in his prescient jeremiad on multiculturalism, The Disuniting of America.”

   • 2007, The Guardian,

     Cannes is smacking its lips in anticipation of filmmaker and provocateur Michael Moore's latest jeremiad against the US administration, which receives its premiere at the film festival today.