Invective | Definition, Meaning & Examples

Invective is language that is abusive, insulting, or deeply critical. Although it’s found in everyday life, it is also identified as a literary device used in speeches and literary texts. Invective is used to attack, belittle, or frighten an adversary. In the following example from Macbeth, the beleaguered eponymous hero is berating a terrified servant for looking so pale and scared.

Invective definition

The word invective comes from the Latin word “invectivus,” meaning “reproachful” or “scolding.” It is negative, attacking language, usually personally insulting and harsh.

In the practice of rhetoric in Roman times, invective was used to belittle or undermine political opponents and turn the audience against them. It could take several different forms, including:

• Threats or curses to attack someone or something
• Personal attacks (ad hominem) to avoid attacking the argument
• Strong criticism to besmirch someone’s reputation
• Biting humor to bring someone or something down in the audience’s opinion

Invective is sometimes categorized as high invective, where the language is clever and the insults are sophisticated, and low invective, where the attack is more direct and simpler.

The purpose of invective

There are several reasons why a speaker or writer might want to deploy invective, including:

• Adding to characterization: It can help a writer add color to a character to make them use invective. High invective can help to establish them as smart and clever, while low invective can add to the sense that the character is simpler or more coarse.
• Expressing negative emotions: Powerful emotions expressed in speech or text can invoke powerful responses in the audience. Invective can play a crucial part in this, especially if the audience is largely on the speaker’s side already.
• Undermining credibility: Especially when debating political opponents, invective has long been used to attack and undermine them personally and their policies, ideas, or actions.
• Attacking public figures: Political satirists deploy invective (both high and low) to attack public figures.

Invective examples

One of the most sustained examples of invective in modern writing is found in Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” (or you could turn to his “Idiot Wind” or “Positively 4th Street”). Written at the height of the Cold War, the song addresses politicians and arms manufacturers and berates what Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.”

In Aaron Sorkin’s play A Few Good Men (and the film version of it) Colonel Jessep shows his disdain for Lieutenant Kaffee, the young lawyer examining him, emphasizing the difference between the dangerous job that Jessep does and the life that Kaffee enjoys.

Sometimes, invective can be used for comic effect, as in this (one of very many) insults made by Captain Blackadder to his batman Baldrick in Blackadder Goes Forth.

Frequently asked questions about invective

How do you use invective in a sentence?

You can use the word invective to describe harsh, critical, unpleasant words, often of a personal nature. Invective can sometimes be seen as sophisticated, or demonstrating a large vocabulary, although some authorities highlight the difference between low invective (e.g., “He’s stupid”) and high invective (e.g., ”He exhibits low electrocortical activity”).

Very often, invective will be applied in a pejorative sense, as a criticism of the person being accused of using invective (e.g., “There’s no room, at this time of heightened tensions, for the senator’s reckless invective”).

What are some examples of invective?

You don’t have to look too far to find examples of invective. They are particularly prevalent in literature, politics, the media, and social media. Some examples include:

• President Johnson is reported as saying that Gerald Ford couldn’t “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
• Dorothy Parker said of a novel she was reviewing, “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
• “You are as useless as the “ueue” in “queue.”
• When Juliet refuses to marry Paris in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, her father explodes in rage: “Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch! / I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday, / Or never after look me in the face: / Speak not, reply not, do not answer me; / My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest / That God had lent us but this only child; / But now I see this one is one too much, / And that we have a curse in having her: / Out on her, hilding!” —Romeo and Juliet Act III, scene v.

Invective can be smart and sophisticated or simple and direct. Sometimes these are separated into high invective and low invective, respectively.