excoriate
Americanverb (used with object)
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excoriates,
present (3rd person singular)
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excoriated,
past participle, past
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excoriating
present participle
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to denounce or berate severely; flay verbally.
He was excoriated for his mistakes.
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to strip off or remove the skin from.
Her palms were excoriated by the hard labor of shoveling.
verb
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to strip (the skin) from (a person or animal); flay
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med to lose (a superficial area of skin), as by scratching, the application of chemicals, etc
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to denounce vehemently; censure severely
Usage
What does excoriate mean? Excoriate means to harshly scold, criticize, denounce, or express intense disapproval of someone or something. Excoriating someone often involves the severest possible tone and words. This sense of excoriate is based on its original, literal meaning: to strip off or remove the skin from an animal or person. The skin on your hands might be excoriated from hard yard work, for example. The word flay can be used as a synonym for both the figurative and literal sense of excoriate. In a medical context, excoriate means to scratch, scrape, or otherwise cause skin to be rubbed off or removed. The act or an instance of excoriating is excoriation. Example: She publicly excoriated her rival for his role in the scandal, criticizing him in the most extreme terms.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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excoriatesimple
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excoriatessimple
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have excoriatedperfect
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has excoriatedperfect
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am excoriatingprogressive
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are excoriatingprogressive
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is excoriatingprogressive
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have been excoriatingperfect progressive
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has been excoriatingperfect progressive
Past
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excoriatedsimple
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had excoriatedperfect
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was excoriatingprogressive
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were excoriatingprogressive
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had been excoriatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of excoriate
Late Middle English, from Late Latin excoriātus (past participle of excoriāre “to strip, skin or bark”). See ex- 1, corium, -ate 1; excoriate def. 2 was first recorded in 1375–1425, and excoriate def. 1 was first recorded in 1880–85.
Explanation
When it comes to “telling someone off,” excoriate is reserved for the most severe cases. So, before you excoriate your little sister for borrowing your favorite jacket without permission, consider whether she truly deserves such harsh treatment. If you excoriate someone, you let that person know that you really, really disagree with them. This verb goes beyond mere criticism; it implies anger, a harsh and insulting tone, and even a scathing attack. Synonyms of excoriate include denounce, decry, and condemn. In a medical sense, excoriate means “to tear skin off by chafing.” A bad rug burn can excoriate your skin. If someone excoriates you verbally, it might make you feel like you’ve been physically excoriated.
Vocabulary lists containing excoriate
100 SAT Words Beginning with "E"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“But Daddy I Love Him” is the album’s finest cut: a garment-rending folk-rock melodrama in which Swift seems to excoriate her audience for its disapproval of her and Healy’s affair.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 19, 2024
Contributing to a debate in parliament last month MP Sam George, a prominent critic of the project, quoted the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament to excoriate the government.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2023
In one session, Mr. Trump turned to Mr. Christie and began to excoriate him for recommending Christopher Wray for F.B.I. director.
From New York Times ● Nov. 13, 2021
On the one hand, they excoriate Black folk, especially young people, when they opt out of the political process by not voting or joining conventional avenues for participation.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 16, 2021
“We need to take care of this. It’s too far gone. We have to excoriate the skin and replace your G-tube to purge the infection.”
From "Five Feet Apart" by Rachael Lippincott
These omissions feel particularly glaring in light of how Aly excoriates the scholars of the era for viewing the islanders as history-less primitives who simply “died out” after contact with the modern world.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 8, 2023
China, which has been racing to implement one of the world’s toughest data privacy regimes, frequently excoriates companies for mishandling data.
From New York Times ● Jul. 14, 2022
Price’s book excoriates the accepted “therapies” for Autism, especially ABA, or Applied Behavioral Analysis.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2022
Joyce also excoriates the religious and political leaders tasked with addressing the needs of the Irish in the figures of Father John Conmee and the British Viceroy.
From Salon ● Feb. 1, 2022
The milky juice exudes from incisions made in the branches, and is so acrid that it excoriates the hand when applied to it.
From Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture by William Saunders
District Judge April Perry excoriated prosecutors for using illegal tactics to get the criminal charges past a skeptical grand jury, dressing down U.S.
From Slate ● May 22, 2026
Now, Warsh will find himself on the inside again, working with the people he’s excoriated.
From MarketWatch ● May 13, 2026
He has excoriated federal officials for erroneously linking vaccines to autism, warning that the administration is endangering the lives of infants and young children in scaling back childhood vaccine recommendations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 9, 2026
Another judge separately excoriated Halligan for continuing to identify herself as U.S. attorney, despite the November ruling that found her appointment unlawful.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 2026
A few scientists had challenged Meggers’s ideas; Roosevelt excoriated them from top to bottom.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Arday, who was appointed in a blaze of publicity in 2023 as the youngest-ever black professor to Cambridge University, was found dead on Friday, aged 41, after weeks of excoriating media reports.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
While excoriating the loss of his visa, López Beltrán also painted a dystopian picture of present-day life north of the border.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
West, one of the grande dames of the movement, got her start at Seattle alt-weekly the Stranger and spent years excoriating fatphobia, online misogyny, and male entitlement for the ur-millennial-feminist site Jezebel.
From Slate ● Mar. 31, 2026
“Rebel English Academy” reprises the excoriating humor of that debut, but only erratically.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
Sarai uncovered her eyes and found Great Ellen restored to human form, the excoriating hawk gaze replaced by a piercing but compassionate human one.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
