Word of the Day

: January 19, 2024

harangue

noun huh-RANG

What It Means

A harangue is a forceful or angry speech or piece of writing.

// After watching the popular documentary, he delivered a long harangue about the dangers of social media.

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harangue in Context

'"HBO’s 'The Young Pope” … is a visually sublime but textually ridiculous horror tale in which the monster is the pontiff himself. …[H]is first public address is not the warm greeting the crowd in St. Peter’s Square hopes for, but a terrifying harangue. 'You have forgotten God!' he raves, declaring that his papacy will abandon the feel-good rhetoric of reaching out to one’s fellow man." — James Poniewozik, The New York Times, 12 Jan. 2017

Did You Know?

In Old Italian, the verb aringare meant "to speak in public," the noun aringo referred to a public assembly, and the noun aringa referred to a public speech. Aringa was borrowed into Middle French as arenge, and it is from this form that we get our noun harangue, which made its first appearance in English in the 16th century with that same "public speech" meaning. Perhaps due to the bombastic or exasperated nature of some public speeches, the term quickly developed an added sense referring to a forceful or angry speech or piece of writing, making it a synonym of rant. By the mid-17th century, the verb harangue made it possible to harangue others with such speech or writing.