as in jeremiad
a long angry speech or scolding
the head coach was briefly suspended after launching into a foul-mouthed philippic during a press conference
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Recent Examples of philippic
How not to hear in his philippic the traces of an OCD inscribed in our cultural DNA, a sanctimony that launched the archetypal act of avoidance that forms our origin myth?
—
Andrew Kay, Harpers Magazine, 28 May 2025
The poet’s occasional philippics against capitalist excess are hard to distinguish from postwar politics, when former allies became lethal enemies, while in America the Red Scare of McCarthyism loomed.
—William Logan, New York Times, 11 Apr. 2025
While its always welcome to see additional news outlets in the battle for truth, justice and the American way, this philippic certainly doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously as a dispenser of information.
—Charles Selle, Chicago Tribune, 19 Sep. 2022
Early Friday morning, around 1 am Eastern, President Donald Trump had published a 102-word philippic to his Facebook and Twitter pages.
—Benjamin Wofford, Wired, 10 Mar. 2022
Recent Examples of Synonyms for philippic
Noun
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Bruce Springsteen has escalated his beef with Donald Trump, dropping an entire live EP of anti-Trump jeremiads.—
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Hay dashed off another jeremiad to their associates.—
Noun
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Stewart’s diatribe—the comedic edge of which could not mask its furious sincerity—hit a nerve.—
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Award for Colloquial Excellence for the Haitian mortician diatribe.—
Noun
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Bosa responded with an explicit tirade.—
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Perhaps his tirade wasn’t in vain, as Minnesota possessed a sizable free-throw advantage throughout the affair, though the Wolves missed 14 of their 47 attempts.—
Noun
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Good's defenders – including city and state leaders – are calling what happened an unjustified attack; federal authorities say the agent was acting in self-defense.—
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In Kyiv, a CNN reporter said that the attack began around midnight, starting with multiple drone strikes on residential buildings.—
Noun
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And cornerback Mike Jackson, who had four pass breakups and an interception in the playoff game, dismissed criticism of Evero’s play-calling on the defense’s final drive.—
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The couple, who did not grow up knowing one another because of estrangements in their families, faced criticism from both sets of parents for the union.—
Noun
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Disney and Paramount Global both kowtowed to weak suits from President Donald Trump agreeing to pay settlements of $15 million and $16 million, respectively, to make the legal harangues go away rather than fighting for ABC News and CBS News.—
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Key foreign leaders have reaffirmed support for Ukraine after Trump’s public harangue of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month and taken steps to expand their defense outlays.—
Noun
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What Meyer is really known for is his weekly sermon, delivered with a megaphone, getting the crowd pumped up and closing out with a final score prediction.—
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Duffman's announcement comes less than two months after the death of another longtime Simpsons regular, First Church Organist Alice Glick, who died during a sermon.—
Noun
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The shelving unit that contains some of his collection of roughly 20,000 books stretches to the ceiling of the two-story living room; McDaniel would later perch on its narrow catwalk to deliver his lecture.—
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Very few people want to buy a ticket for a lecture on overconsumption, corporate exploitation, and the dumbing down of public discourse.—
Cite this Entry
“Philippic.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/philippic. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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