Definition of EXCORIATE

Did You Know?

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

He was excoriated as a racist. The candidates have publicly excoriated each other throughout the campaign.

Recent Examples on the Web

Socrates excoriated the Sophists for their pay-to-play philosophy. — National Geographic, "Who was Socrates?," 11 Mar. 2019 Mass protests have taken place every year since 2016, most recently in March, excoriating the companies that manage the pension pots. — The Economist, "Chile tinkers with its ground-breaking pensions system," 8 June 2019 The seven were hiding out in an apartment in the coastal city of Tianjin while the group released statements excoriating Beijing police for having shown several of them videotaped confessions by fellow activists detained last year, friends said. — Rob Taylor, WSJ, "Australia Probes China’s Detention of Australian-Chinese Writer," 23 Jan. 2019 Crowley appears positively asleep at the wheel, waking up only when the New York Times excoriates him, to awkwardly bop at a Queens Pride Parade and talk almost exclusively about Trump. — Bridget Read, Vogue, "Knock Down the House Reminds Us that AOC's Triumph Almost Wasn't," 3 May 2019 The loudest of those criticisms reached the President through TV screens, where the conservative firebrand Ann Coulter excoriated the President for failing to get border wall funding. — Jeremy Diamond, CNN, "Trump's base-pleasing border tweets foreshadow 2018 role," 4 Apr. 2018 Four Merrill executives in jail for a year, overturned by Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and he was excoriated twice for withholding exculpatory evidence. — Callum Borchers, Washington Post, "Rudy Giuliani’s revealing interview with Sean Hannity, annotated," 3 May 2018 After aides roundly excoriated Democrats and journalists — two of Trump’s favorite targets — on morning news shows, the administration turned to welcoming Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House. — Catherine Lucey, The Seattle Times, "Victory lap and accolades: Trump has, perhaps, best day ever," 26 Mar. 2019 This notorious polemic, for which the ADL eventually was forced to apologize, excoriated leaders like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Sr. and Phyllis Schlafly. — WSJ, "In Defense of the Anti-Defamation League," 31 July 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'excoriate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.