What is another word for invective?

Pronunciation: [ɪnvˈɛktɪv] (IPA)

Invective is a word used to describe abusive and insulting language. Some synonyms for invective are abuse, vilification, vituperation, scurrility, diatribe, and tirade. These words are all used to describe harsh language used to attack someone. Abuse is a general term for any type of verbal attack, regardless of its level of intensity. Vilification is the act of speaking ill of someone in a public and malicious manner. Vituperation is the act of criticizing or blaming someone in an abusive or negative manner. Scurrility refers to the use of vulgar or obscene language to attack someone. Diatribe and tirade both describe a long and angry speech or written work that is full of criticism.

Synonyms for Invective:

What are the hypernyms for Invective?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

What are the hyponyms for Invective?

Hyponyms are more specific words categorized under a broader term, known as a hypernym.

What are the opposite words for invective?

Invective is a strong, insulting or abusive language that is often used to express anger, disapproval or criticism. However, there are many antonyms - words with the opposite meaning - that can be used instead to express positive thoughts and emotions. Examples of such antonyms include adulation, praise or commendation. These words express admiration, applause or approval instead of criticism or condemnation. Similarly, words such as compliment, flattery, and praise can also be used as antonyms for invective. Choosing the right antonym can change the tone of communication and help achieve a more constructive and positive outcome.

Usage examples for Invective

"This action," he is reputed to have said, "can have no greater invective made against it than the bare relation.
"Henrietta Maria"
Henrietta Haynes
She cast it to the winds on this occasion, however, for she fought like a wild cat for freedom, and when at length her absolute helplessness was made quite clear even to her, she went into a paroxysm of fury, hurling every kind of invective that occurred to her at Monck who with the grimness of an executioner sat at his table in unbroken silence.
"The Lamp in the Desert"
Ethel M. Dell
Then every voice within the council chamber was simultaneously raised in loud protestations, and had Elias Rody seen the flashing eyes and angry gestures, or heard the fierce invective hurled back to his proposal, he would have hesitated to renew it.
"The White Squaw"
Mayne Reid

Famous quotes with Invective

  • The public of this country is so youthful, not to say simple-minded, that it cannot understand the meaning of a fable unless the moral is set forth at the end. Unable to see a joke, insensible to irony, it has, in a word, been badly brought up. It has not yet learned that in a decent book, as in decent society, open invective can have no place; that our present-day civilisation has invented a keener weapon, none the less deadly for being almost invisible, which, under the cloak of flattery, strikes with sure and irresistible effect.
    Mikhail Lermontov
  • 'Pooh! Pooh! Nonsense!' was the reply, 'that's all very well in theory, but it doesn't work so. The returning of slaves amounts to nothing in fact. All that is obsolete. And why make all this row? Can't you hush ? We've nothing to do with slavery, we tell you. We can't touch it; and if you persist in this agitation about a mere form and theory, why, you're a set of pestilent fanatics and traitors; and if you get your noisy heads broken, you get just what you deserve'. And they quoted in the faces of the abolitionists the words of Governor Edward Everett, who was not an authority with them, in that fatal inaugural address, 'The patriotism of all classes of citizens must be invited to abstain from a discussion which, by exasperating the master, can have no other effect than to render more oppressive the condition of the slave'. It was as if some kindly Pharisee had said to Christ, 'Don't try to cast out that evil spirit; it may rend the body on departing'. Was it not as if some timid citizen had said, 'Don't say hard things of intemperance lest the dram-shops, to spite us, should give away the rum'? And so the battle raged. The abolitionists dashed against slavery with passionate eloquence like a hail of hissing fire. They lashed its supporters with the scorpion whip of their invective. Ambition, reputation, ortune, ease, life itself they threw upon the consuming altar of their cause. Not since those earlier fanatics of freedom, Patrick Henry and James Otis, has the master chord of human nature, the love of liberty, been struck with such resounding power. It seemed in vain, so slowly their numbers increased, so totally were they outlawed from social and political and ecclesiastical recognition. The merchants of Boston mobbed an editor for virtually repeating the Declaration of Independence. The city of New York looked on and smiled while the present United States marshal insulted a woman as noble and womanly and humane as Florence Nightingale. In other free States men were flying for their lives; were mobbed, seized, imprisoned, maimed, murdered ; but still as, in the bitter days of Puritan persecution in Scotland, the undaunted voices of the Covenanters were heard singing the solemn songs of God that echoed and re-echoed from peak to peak of the barren mountains, until the great dumb wilderness was vocal with praise — so in little towns and great cities were heard the uncompromising voices of these men sternly intoning the majestic words of the Golden Rule and the Declaration of Independence, which echoed from solitary heart to heart until the whole land rang with the litany of liberty.
    George William Curtis
  • A person can't make a career out of somebody else's invective.
    Tom Robbins
  • The subject [of Stalin's death] permitted a rare blend of invective and speculation—both Hearst papers, as I recall, ran cartoons of Stalin being rebuffed at the gates of Heaven, where Hearst had no correspondents—and I have seldom enjoyed a week of newspaper reading more.
    A. J. Liebling
  • The mark of a healthy democracy is the preference for argument rather than invective. Those are the roots the left must reclaim.
    Stephen L. Carter

Related words: invective noun, invective in literature, the function of invective, the origin of invective, personification of invective, synonyms for invective

Related questions:

  • What is an invective noun?
  • How do you use an invective?
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