Word.ws English Dictionary

philippics

philippics is the plural of philippic.

Meaning of philippic

Noun

philippic (plural philippics)

  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.1869, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXII, in The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company. […], →OCLC, page 348
  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.”1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XII, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 234

Questions about philippics

What is philippics the plural of?
Philippics is the plural of philippic.

Words near philippics in the dictionary

  1. philippicized
  2. philippicizes
  3. philippicizing
  4. philippick
  5. philippicks
  6. philippics
  7. Philippides
  8. philippine
  9. Philippine cedar
  10. Philippine cedars
  11. Philippine cobra

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: philippics (page history and authors); philippic (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “philippics.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/philippics. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.