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Definition of "harangue" []

  • A long pompous speech, especially one delivered before a gathering. (noun)
  • A speech or piece of writing characterized by strong feeling or expression; a tirade. (noun)
  • To deliver a harangue to. (verb-transitive)
  • To deliver a harangue. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "harangue" in a sentence
  • "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."