JEREMIAD: a prolonged lamentation or complaint; also: a cautionary or angry harangue
Jeremian was a Jewish prophet who lived from about 650 to 570 B.C. and spent his days lambasting the Hebrews for their false worship and social injustice and denouncing the king for his selfishenss, materialism, and inequlities. When not calling on his people to quit their wicked ways, he was lamenting his own lot; a portion of the Old Testament's Book of Jeremiah is devoted to his "confessions," a series of lamentations on the hardships endured by a prophet with an unpopular message. Nowadays, English-speakers use "Jeremiah" for a pessimistic person and "jeremaid" for the way these Jermiahs carry on. The word "jeremiad" was actually borrowed from the French, who coined it as jeremiade.
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