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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
Samantha Riedel, Them, 19 Feb. 2025
During the 1980s, activists excoriated President Ronald Reagan for his administration’s slow response to the burgeoning AIDS crisis that was decimating the gay community.
—Benjamin Ryan, NBC News, 31 Jan. 2025
For this, she was publicly excoriated, by the president and his supporters.
—Belinda Luscombe, TIME, 23 Jan. 2025
In a different era, this would have been the sort of excoriating appraisal that a Cabinet nominee would spend a great deal of time trying to rebut.
—Tess Owen, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Excoriate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/excoriate. Accessed 3 Mar. 2025.
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excoriate
verb
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