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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

excoriate.

To remove the skin and/or fur of, to flay, to skin.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ɪkˈskɔɹ.iˌeɪt/US/ɪkˈskoʊɹ.iˌeɪt/US
  1. To remove the skin and/or fur of, to flay, to skin.

    transitive
  2. To wear off the skin of; to chafe.

    transitive
  3. To strongly condemn or criticize.

    figuratively · transitive
    The teacher continued to excoriate the student after his academic issues.
Where this word comes from

First attested in the first part of the 15ᵗʰ century, in Middle English; inherited from Middle English *excoriaten (only attested in its past participle), borrowed from Late Latin excoriātus perfect passive participle of excoriō (“to take the skin or hide off, flay, skin”), from ex- (“out off, from”) + corium (“hide, skin”) + -ō. Regular participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English, later archaic.

adj/ɪkˈskɔɹ.iˌeɪt/US/ɪkˈskoʊɹ.iˌeɪt/US
  1. Excoriated.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

First attested in the first part of the 15ᵗʰ century, in Middle English; inherited from Middle English *excoriaten (only attested in its past participle), borrowed from Late Latin excoriātus perfect passive participle of excoriō (“to take the skin or hide off, flay, skin”), from ex- (“out off, from”) + corium (“hide, skin”) + -ō. Regular participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English, later archaic.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.