Other forms: harangued, harangues, haranguing
A harangue is a long scolding speech. One person talking, everybody else enduring it.
The length and the reproach together are what define it, since a short telling-off is not a harangue. It works as a verb, so haranguing a crowd or being harangued by a stranger. The word is disapproving whichever end you are at. The pronunciation is worth noting, since it ends like meringue with the ue silent. Tirade and diatribe are its close relatives and both are angrier.
A harangue was a speech to an assembly. Old Italian aringo meant a public gathering, from a Gothic word, and aringare was to speak at one, so the harangue was named for its setting long before it turned scolding.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)ker- (turn)
Gothic
*𐌷𐍂𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃
roa-oit
aringa
French
harangue
Middle English
arang
English, today
harangue
Built from
From Middle English arang and French harangue, from roa-oit aringa (modern Italian arringa) from aringare (“speak in public”) (modern Italian arringare), from aringo (“public assembly”), from Gothic 𐌷𐍂𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃 or a compound containing it, akin to Old High German hring (“ring”) (whence German Ring). a doublet of range and rank and ring and rink.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word