Diatribe

Origin of: Diatribe

Diatribe

In the 16th century, anyone working on a diatribe would be working on a dissertation or a discourse of some kind. It used to be a word with no adverse connotations, deriving from the Latin noun diatriba meaning study or discourse. By the early 19th century, however, the meaning had evolved into a bitter and violent criticism or an invective directed against another person.