I've Never Been So Insulted...

It's not proper behavior, and you won't see it condoned in any etiquette manual, but when you're confident you're right and have a real zinger in mind, hurling an insult is quite satisfying and scratches an itch unlike anything else. You'll find no four letter words on this list, nor any actual insults. Instead, here are fifteen words that relate to the act of insulting, from clever one-liners to long speeches filled with venom.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. berate
    censure severely or angrily
    If they continue to berate you, you have to tell them that you simply will not listen to such insults.
    —Slate, Aug 26, 2014
    Middle English rate meant "scold" and the prefix be- meant "thoroughly" or "all around" ( this prefix has survived into Modern English in words like besieged .)
  2. censure
    harsh criticism or disapproval
    A public censure is the most severe form of discipline the commission can issue outside of removing a judge from the bench.
    —Los Angeles Times, Sep 2, 2014
    From Latin censura, "judgement, opinion." Although this word was originally associated with the church, it bears no relation to the other religious censer, the vessel for burning incense, which comes from an Old French word for "incense."
  3. harangue
    a loud bombastic declamation expressed with strong emotion
    During a break in proceedings, some parents harangued the judge and defendants, and one woman tried to throw her shoes at the dock.
    —BBC, Jul 8, 2014
    This word's etymology captures the situations in which public "haranguings" took place centuries ago. The Middle French noun harangue from which the verb form derives has as its ancestor an Italian word aringo, meaning "public square" or "platform". One theory holds that harangue is ultimately from a Germanic compound hari-hring, which is translatable as " circular gathering." An entire scene of public humiliation is painted by the linguistic history of this word.
  4. pillory
    expose to ridicule or public scorn
    That column — which also pilloried ed[ ucation] reformers as market-obsessed automatons interested in nothing beyond turning schools into cash machines — incited the usual raft of rebuttals.
    —Seattle Times, Aug 21, 2014
    From Old French pilori, "pillory" which was a wooden instrument of punishment. The physical pillory dates from the late 13th century, but the metaphorical extension is not attested until the late 17th century.
  5. upbraid
    express criticism towards
    Even Chinese officials, usually reluctant to upbraid friendly Southeast Asian countries publicly, have criticized the Malaysians’ handling of the inquiry.
    —New York Times, Mar 22, 2014
    From Old English upbregdan, " bring forth as a ground for censure." Bregdan, "move quickly, intertwine" is also the Old English ancestor to English braid.
  6. diatribe
    thunderous verbal attack
    She answered the question in a long diatribe tinged with cheerful disgust.
    —New York Times, Aug 29, 2014
    Originally, diatribe was a perfectly pleasant word, dating back to Plato for whom the Greek diatribe meant "discourse." It is not until 1804 when the French diatribe, previously used to mean "critical dissertation", starts to take on the sense of "invective" that the word of attack we know today was born.
  7. chastise
    scold or criticize severely
    Based on a single exam, students can be told they are “below grade level,” and schools and their teachers might be chastised as “failures.”
    —US News, Sep 2, 2014
    From Latin castigare, which meant "to reprove or punish" but is literally "to make pure."
  8. fulminate
    criticize severely
    The patient stomped out of the office, fulminating bitterly as he went: "If you weren't going to give me antibiotics, why did you see me?"
    —Los Angeles Times, Jun 6, 2014
    From Latin fulminatus "to hurl lightning." Originally referred, in English, to a formal censure by the Church.
  9. rebuke
    an act or expression of criticism and censure
    The decisions drew a rebuke from the chief justice, who argued people’s privacy rights were violated in each instance.
    —Washington Times, Jul 24, 2014
    From Anglo-French rebuker, "to repel, beat back."
  10. disparage
    express a negative opinion of
    In both experiments, reading the Harry Potter novels was associated with more positive attitudes toward these frequently excluded or disparaged groups.
    —New York Times, Aug 14, 2014
    From Old French desparagier, "reduce in rank, degrade, devalue." This word also once meant "to marry unequally" and carries with it that class-based shame.
  11. deprecate
    express strong disapproval of; deplore
    Isherwood revered Forster, and deprecated the obsessive American habit of ranking reputations, ubiquitous since Hemingway claimed so unconvincingly not to consider writing a competitive sport.
    —The Guardian Aug 3, 2012
    From Latin deprecatus "to pray something away, to pray for deliverance from."
  12. lambaste
    censure severely or angrily
    The public and politicians alike have lambasted the captain for abandoning his ship while hundreds remained aboard.
    —Time Oct 8, 2014
    Quite the violent word: lam is akin to Old Norse lemja which meant " to beat, to make lame", and baste means "to thrash."
  13. admonish
    scold or reprimand; take to task
    She became so emotional during testimony last week that the trial was halted, and Jones was admonished by the judge on Tuesday to stay calm.
    —Reuters Sep 30, 2014
    From Latin admonere "bring to mind, suggest." From Latin parts ad- "to" and monere, "advise, warn."
  14. chide
    scold or reprimand severely or angrily
    Jenkins chided the operators of the hospital for failing to prevent infections among its staff.
    —The Guardian Oct 16, 2014
    In Modern English, this verb is transitive: it takes a grammatical object, in this case the person one is chiding. In Old English, however, cidan meant something closer to "to quarrel, to complain" and did not take an object—it was an intransitive verb.
  15. reprove
    reprimand, scold, or express dissatisfaction with
    She reproved him for his boldness and want of courtesy, when he threatened to stab her with a bayonet.
    —Jesse Clement
    From Late Latin reprobare, "disapprove, reject, condemn." The same Latin word is at the root of the English reprobate "one rejected by God."
Created on Mon Sep 22 14:04:47 EDT 2014 (updated Mon Nov 10 20:16:10 EST 2014)

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