“Diatribe (noun): And abusive, often prolonged attack or denunciation; acrimonious harangue or critique.
‘Without polemic, dialectic, or diatribe, she has conveyed more clearly than anyone I’ve ever read before what it was like to be a girl in the 50’s, when one had a chance to grow up quietly and gradually.’ Susan Bolotin, The New York Times”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.