a modern French name for a speech or oration made by an orator in public.—Menage derives the word from the Italian arenza, which signifies the same; formed, according to Ferrari, from arringa, "a jolt, or place of jostling." Others derive it from the Latin ara, "altar;" by reason the first harangues were made before altars; whence the verse of Juvenal,

Aut Lugdunensia rhetor distulit aram.

Harangues were usually made by the generals, previous to an engagement both among the Greeks and Romans. An harangue on such occasions was called allocutio. See Allocutio.

The word is also frequently used in an ill sense, viz. for a too pompous, prolix, or unseasonable speech or declamation.