lacerate
verb (used with object)
to tear roughly; mangle.
self-lacerating
-
a word derived from
lacerate.
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.
“You don’t want to live through this, per se,” she suggests about Fiona Apple’s anxieties, which the singer bares in “The Idler Wheel . . . ,” her self-lacerating 2012 album.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026
And the self-lacerating comic who says in the film: “I guarantee I had no talent. None.”
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 26, 2024
“Liquid Snakes” is a strange, disorienting puzzle; a mocking eulogy; a bitter, self-lacerating exercise in what one character calls “vivid ideation”; a long look into a sinkhole of grief.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2023
The hollow pain of heartbreak activates something in her — the more self-lacerating she gets, the more sumptuous her singing becomes.
From New York Times ● Nov. 29, 2021
It is to his credit that he did not sink into Byronic misanthropy and bitter self-lacerating scorn, or even into Heine's irreverence and persiflage.
From Weird Tales, Vol. II. by E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus) Hoffmann
