Screed
A long, vehement piece of writing or speech, usually a complaint delivered at length.
A screed is an extended, forceful, often intemperate discourse. The word's older senses — a strip of cloth, a long list — survive in the modern implication of length: a screed goes on, and its going on is part of what marks it.
Unlike a tirade, which is usually spoken and immediate, a screed is typically written and composed, which makes its heat more deliberate. Unlike a jeremiad, which laments a decline, a screed may attack anything at all.
Screeds are quotable in a particular way: because they are long and repetitive, extracting a sentence risks giving the writer a crispness they did not have. Responsible quotation from a screed either preserves the accumulation or notes that the excerpt is uncharacteristically tidy.
Common mistake: using 'screed' neutrally. The word is nearly always pejorative; calling a document a screed is a judgement on its tone, not a description of its length alone.
“It was a long screed against the tyranny of the committee, delivered without a pause for breath.”
Keep reading the glossary
A sustained, vehement speech of denunciation — anger organised into paragraphs.
Language of attack: abuse shaped by craft rather than simply shouted.
A prolonged lamentation or bitter complaint, typically warning of moral or social decline.
A long, forceful, often scolding address delivered at an audience rather than to it.