invective
/ɪnˈvɛktɪv/
invective noun: an expression which inveighs or rails against a person.
Noun
invective (countable and uncountable, plural invectives)
- An expression which inveighs or rails against a person.
- A severe or violent censure or reproach.
- Something spoken or written, intended to cast shame, disgrace, censure, or reproach on another.
- And wordy attacks against slavery drew sneers from observers which were not altogether undeserved. The authors were compared to doctors who offered to a patient nothing more than invectives against the disease which consumed him.1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 24
- [A] savage passage of 14th-century invective about the text-obsessed nerdiness of the Florentine bibliophile and friend of Petrarch, Niccolò Niccoli ...2013 September 14, Jane Shilling, “The Golden Thread: the Story of Writing, by Ewan Clayton, review [print edition: Illuminating language]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), page R28
- A harsh or reproachful accusation.
- Politics can raise invective to a low art.
Adjective
invective (comparative more invective, superlative most invective)
- Characterized by invection or railing.
- Tom's speeches became diatribes — each more invective than the last.
- Synonyms:
- abusive, critical, denunciatory, satirical, vitriolic, vituperative
invective meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
invective in Hindi
- invective
- गाली gālī
invective in Urdu
- چوٹ, دشنام, گالی, لعنت, ملامت
invective in Bengali
- তীব্র গালিগালাজ, আক্রমণাত্মক ভাষা, নিন্দা
invective in Malayalam
- abuse, vituperation, insults
- ആക്ഷേപം, അധിക്ഷേപം, വാക്ശരപ്രയോഗം, അപവാദം, ദുർഷണം, ദുരുക്തി
More languagesFewer languages
- invective in Kannada
- ಅಬ್ಬರದ ನಿಂದೆ, ನಿಂದಾತ್ಮಕ ಖಂಡನೆ, ಭರ್ತ್ಸನೆ, ಕೆಕ್ಕಸ
Synonyms of invective
Forms of invective
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | invectives |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more invective |
| superlative | most invective |
Origin of invective
From Middle French invective, from Medieval Latin invectiva (“abusive speech”), from Latin invectīvus, from invectus, perfect passive participle of invehō (“bring in”), from in- + vehō (“carry”). See vehicle, and compare with inveigh.
Words formed from invective
Words that rhyme with invective
Questions about invective
- What does invective mean?
- Invective means an expression which inveighs or rails against a person.
- What is invective in Hindi?
- Invective in Hindi is गाली (gālī). See Invective meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is invective?
- Invective can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce invective?
- Invective is pronounced /ɪnˈvɛktɪv/.
- What is the plural of invective?
- The plural of invective is invectives.
Words near invective in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: invective (page history and authors); गाली (Hindi) (page history and authors); invective (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); invective (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); invective (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); invective (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-invective.ogg.
Cite this entry: “invective.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/invective. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.