Jeremiad

Pronunciation

• RP IPA: /ËŒdÊ’É›r.əˈmaɪ.É™d/
• Rhymes: -aɪəd

Origin

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.

Full definition of jeremiad

Noun

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, , "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, http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2007/story/0,,2083430,00.htmlCannes 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.

Synonyms

• (speech or prose work lamenting society) lament, lamentation