Words & WritingGreek → English
Philippic
/fɪˈlɪpɪk/noun
A bitter denunciation delivered in public.
The Greek roots
φίλος
phílos
loving, dear
ἵππος
híppos
horse
Literally: “horse-lover”
The story of the word
Demosthenes spent the 340s BC warning Athens about Philip II of Macedon, and the speeches were collected as the Philippics. Cicero then borrowed the title for his fourteen attacks on Mark Antony, which cost him his head and his hands, nailed up in the Forum. The word reached English through Cicero rather than Demosthenes, and the horse-loving king who gave it his name has been fully erased from the meaning.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
philosophyhippopotamushippodromePhilip
In a sentence
What began as a point of order turned into a twenty-minute philippic against the finance committee.
She delivered a philippic on parking that the parish council still talks about.