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Excoriate, which first appeared in English in the 15th century, comes from "excoriatus," the past participle of the Late Latin verb excoriare, meaning "to strip off the hide." "Excoriare" was itself formed from a pairing of the Latin prefix ex-, meaning "out," and corium, meaning "skin" or "hide" or "leather." "Corium" has several other descendants in English. One is "cuirass," a name for a piece of armor that covers the body from neck to waist (or something, such as bony plates covering an animal, that resembles such armor). Another is "corium" itself, which is sometimes used as a synonym of "dermis" (the inner layer of human skin).
Examples of excoriate in a Sentence
Chris Deubert, Forbes.com, 31 May 2025
This group certainly deserves to be excoriated; Tapper and Thompson marshal lots of evidence that Biden was even worse behind the scenes than in public, and those closest to the president tightly restricted access to him to obscure the problem.
—Michelle Goldberg, Mercury News, 17 May 2025
In panel discussions, roundtables, and closed-door meetings, analysts exalted the virtues of the United States as an investment destination and excoriated Europe as overregulated, uncompetitive, and incapable of innovating.
—Arancha González Laya, Foreign Affairs, 12 May 2025
Meta had paid twenty-five million dollars to settle a lawsuit with Trump for suspending him from Facebook and Instagram in the aftermath of January 6th; Comcast was trying to spin off MSNBC, which Trump routinely excoriates.
—Antonia Hitchens, New Yorker, 21 Apr. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Excoriate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/excoriate. Accessed 5 Jun. 2025.
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excoriate
verb
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