lengthy screed
- noun
- /ˈlɛŋθi skrid/
- Literature
:
diatriba
- In her lengthy screed, she passionately argued against the proposed legislation, citing multiple studies to support her views.
Examples
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After the town hall meeting, he shared a lengthy screed criticizing the new policy changes that he felt would harm local businesses.
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Did you read that lengthy screed about climate change?
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He delivered a lengthy screed at the meeting, criticizing every aspect of the proposal.
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Her letter to the editor was a lengthy screed denouncing local government policies.
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The professor's email became a lengthy screed about the flaws in the curriculum.
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The editor received a lengthy screed from the disgruntled employee.
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The journalist's lengthy screed addressed the government's failures during the crisis, outlining a series of proposed reforms.
Synonyms
102
5.1
A long loud speech or piece of writing showing anger
25
7.7
A long angry speech that criticizes someone or something
7
9.5
A long angry piece of writing or speech that criticizes something
Antonyms
How Angry
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is fully compositional: 'screed' denotes a long, tedious rant or piece of writing and 'lengthy' simply specifies that it is long, so the combined meaning is directly derivable from the constituents. The adjective+noun pattern is a regular, cross-linguistically common construction, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily understand the phrase.
Etymology
Lengthy screed comes from an older sense of screed meaning a long strip of material, like plaster or paper. People began to call any long, often angry piece of writing a screed, so a lengthy screed means 'a long and often angry piece of writing or speech'.