Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A long pompous speech, especially one delivered before a gathering.
- n. A speech or piece of writing characterized by strong feeling or expression; a tirade.
- v. To deliver a harangue to.
- v. To deliver a harangue.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A set oration; a public address; a formal, vehement, or passionate address; also, any formal or pompous speech; a declamation; a tirade.
- n. Synonyms Address, Oration, etc. See speech.
- To address in a harangue; make a speech to: as, the general harangued the troops.
- To make a formal address or speech; deliver a harangue; declaim.
Wiktionary
- n. An impassioned, disputatious public speech.
- n. A tirade or rant, whether spoken or written.
- v. transitive To give a forceful and lengthy lecture or criticism to someone.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A speech addressed to a large public assembly; a popular oration; a loud address to a multitude; in a bad sense, a noisy or pompous speech; declamation; ranting.
- v. To make an harangue; to declaim.
- v. To address by an harangue.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a loud bombastic declamation expressed with strong emotion
- v. deliver a harangue to; address forcefully
Etymologies
- From Middle English arang and French harangue, from Old Italian aringa (modern Italian arringa) from aringare ("speak in public") (modern Italian arringare), from aringo ("public assembly"), from Gothic *𐌷𐍂𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃 (hriggs), akin to Old High German hring ("ring") (whence German Ring). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English arang, a speech to an assembly, from Old French harangue, from Old Italian aringa, from aringare, to speak in public, probably from aringo, arringa, public square, meeting place, of Germanic origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“This was, perhaps, the first time an harangue from the baron had been thought too short; but the surprise of young Lynmere; at the view of his destined bride, made him wish he would speak on, merely to annul any necessity for speaking himself.”
“Therefore, to make you happier, I will expand the sphere of my so-called "slippery" use of the term "harangue" -- which you somehow connote only with Nick and his "bombastic ranting" as you say -- to inlude not just the initial Anonymous comment, but Nick, yourself, and anyone else who jumps to malicious, bucolic, or any other conclusions about another individual, based on a pittance of data.”
“Every word of Nicias went home, galling him in his sorest point -- his outrageous vanity; and hardly had the elder statesman concluded his speech, when he sprang to his feet, and burst without preface into a wild harangue, which is a remarkable piece of self-revelation, disclosing with perfect candour the inner motives of the man on whom, more than on any other, the future of Athens depended.”
“Enthusiastic women never even suspect the difference that there is between the excitement of a popular harangue, which is nothing but a mere passionate outburst, and the unfolding of a didactic process, the aim of which is to prove something and to convince its hearers.”
“In a majority opinion that could be charitably described as a harangue, Justice Earl Warren cited multiple irrelevant cases in which criminal suspects were forcibly deprived of their rights, and then conceded that Miranda was not alleged to have received any such treatment.”
“CNET blogger Don Reisinger began an 800-word harangue with the words "Has Brian Caulfield of Forbes totally lost it?”
“I see a difference between using the punchline without attribution (the ancient rule for commencement speakers has been to "make them suffer") and using the whole opening, including its rather unusual word choices ( "harangue," "slavish in its obedience to ancient custom," "beg for mercy").”
“(Later identified by wire services as Rives Miller Grogan of Los Angeles, the man was arrested and charged under a law that makes it a crime to "harangue" inside the Supreme Court.)”
“This is not exactly the kind of harangue the current administion and the boys wanted to hear.”
“There's no emotion or umbrage here or even shit-picking attached to telling you that when I read "harangue" I assume "bombastic ranting," which is not my connotation, but a standard and prevailing definition of the word "harangue.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘harangue’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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A-R-A Words
It's an odd-looking pattern in English. Please add words if it makes you happy. :) K-POW! Wow @gulyasrobi!
scarab, Arawak, Sahara, Arab, pharaoh, caravan, carat, parachute, arachnid, Saran Wrap, Sarah, tarantella and 492 more...
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Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
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501
Classic
mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly and 401 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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Naresh_Special
portent, organically, malicious, sham, olfactory, vertebrates, protuberance, sensilla, flagitious, pleonastic, exiguous, wayward and 102 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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501
Classic
abhor, mirth, obtuse, iota, vex, irk, teem, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane and 401 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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Naresh_Gre2
convoke, cosset, coterie, declaim, distaff, doff, dovetail, droll, dyspeptic, egress, ersatz, euphemism and 108 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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Tristram Shandy
souse, meet, sententious, propound, boot, casuistry, avoirdupois, akimbo, disport, lenity, succussation, sweetbread and 155 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Words About Words
code-switching, amphiboly, hermeneutics, echolalia, boustrophedon, logorrhea, trope, harangue, shibboleth, rhotic, susurrous, metonymy and 6 more...
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Verbages
puddle, kowtow, tessellate, defalcate, embezzle, enkindle, ablate, frivol, moonlight, tongue-tie, gobble, pettifog and 58 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for harangue.

dontcry Sometimes a good harangue can be as satisfying as, say, a 3 or 4 on the you-know-what scale. Jun 2, 2008
Prolagus He's a wonderful talker, who has the art of telling you nothing in a great harangue.
(From Le Misanthrope, by Molière; the original lines are
C'est un parleur étrange, et qui trouve toujours
L'art de ne vous rien dire avec de grands discours.) Mar 23, 2008