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APF diatribe in 5, 4, 3...
Definition of diatribe
1 : a bitter and abusive speech or piece of writing
2 : ironic or satirical criticism
3 archaic : a prolonged discourse
See diatribe defined for English-language learners
See diatribe defined for kids
Examples of diatribe in a Sentence
… his apparent inability to keep his pen from drifting from the main objective of his words into diatribe must have taken away from the sound and otherwise convincing arguments that he advanced. —Henry Petroski, Engineers of Dreams, 1995
I looked … and listened to her ahistorical and apolitical diatribe. Her comments were a more extreme form of the kind of Pats bashing I've often heard … Apologies to Itabari Njeri, "Sushi and Grits," in Lure and Loathing, 1993 - The Year The Unholy Abomination Was Perpetrated
History of diatribe
In modern times, a diatribe is not something most of us want to endure:
Our fellow poster continually subjects us to a lengthy diatribe about how terrible the team's replacement logo is.
I'd prefer a reasoned argument to the diatribes that typically litter patsfans.com's forums.
That wasn't true in the word's early days, though.
When English speakers adopted diatribe in the late 16th century, they were glancing back at the ancients. The word comes from Greek diatribē, meaning "pastime" or "discourse," by way of Latin diatriba. The English word first referred to the popular lectures of ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, the usual topic of which was ethics.
When the word diatribe referred to written work in this context, that work was understood to be either a transcription of such a lecture, or a written development of one. According to some, these oral and written diatribes were the model on which modern sermons were built.
Over time, this very specific meaning of diatribe developed a more general meaning that didn't require the ancients themselves: any prolonged discourse—written or oral—could be considered a diatribe. That sense of the word, however, is now archaic; you don't typically find it in modern contexts.
When diatribe is used today, the connotation is quite different. The word most often refers to a bitter or abusive speech or piece of writing, as in the examples given above.