philippic

noun

1. Any of the discourses of Demosthenes against Philip II of Macedon, defending the liberty of Athens.

   “[…] the Bema, from whence Demosthenes thundered his philippics and fired the wavering patriotism of his countrymen.”

2. (broadly)Any tirade or declamation full of bitter condemnation.

   “Mrs. Ferrars looked exceedingly angry, and drawing herself up more stiffly than ever, pronounced in retort this bitter phillipic; “Miss Morton is Lord Morton’s daughter.””

   “"Sir Robert Akhurst is a good man, a very good man, notwithstanding his philippic; but he is an old one, which makes all the difference."”

   “Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to grind, was airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble philippic anent the natural resources of Ireland, or something of that sort, which he described in his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none on the face of God’s earth, far and away superior to England”

   “As a young man, Lytton Strachey admired Hastings and wrote a long thesis on him, while dismissing Burke as ‘an ignorant enthusiast’. What strikes me on rereading those great philippics is, on the contrary, their exactness and perceptiveness.”