invective
noun
- abusive, reproachful, or venomous speech
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ɪnˈvɛktɪv/
adj
Etymology: From Middle French invective, from Medieval Latin invectiva (“abusive speech”), from Latin invectīvus, from invectus, perfect passive participle of invehō (“bring in”), from in- + vehō (“carry”). See vehicle, and compare with inveigh.
- Characterized by invection or railing.
“Tom's speeches became diatribes — each more invective than the last.”
noun
Etymology: From Middle French invective, from Medieval Latin invectiva (“abusive speech”), from Latin invectīvus, from invectus, perfect passive participle of invehō (“bring in”), from in- + vehō (“carry”). See vehicle, and compare with inveigh.
- An expression which inveighs or rails against a person.
- A severe or violent censure or reproach.
- Something spoken or written, intended to cast shame, disgrace, censure, or reproach on another.
“And wordy attacks against slavery drew sneers from observers which were not altogether undeserved. The authors were compared to doctors who offered to a patient nothing more than invectives against the disease which consumed him.”
“[A] savage passage of 14th-century invective about the text-obsessed nerdiness of the Florentine bibliophile and friend of Petrarch, Niccolò Niccoli ...”
- A harsh or reproachful accusation.
“Politics can raise invective to a low art.”