Sunday Word: Excoriate

[sallymn]

excoriate [ik-skawr-ee-eyt, -skohr-]

verb:
1 to denounce or berate severely; flay verbally
2 to strip off or remove the skin from

Examples:

I've had many worse evenings at musicals. But I fail to see the point of a show that doesn't know whether it wants to excoriate The X Factor or boost its TV ratings. (Michael Billington, I Can't Sing! review - 'Uneasily pitched between send-up and celebration', The Guardian, March 2014)

There is strife ahead, to be sure, but this is not a dour, sentimental exercise in which the misunderstood subject comes to a sad end while the survivors rend their governments and excoriate themselves for never having listened, really listened, and then drive out to the country to dedicate a tree. (Robert Lloyd, Review: In 'Butterfly,' gender identity is at the heart of Hulu's new family drama, Los Angeles Times, January 2019)

The drops of rain bruise us, false notes excoriate us, darknesses blind us! (Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of St Anthony)

...insects still hum in the sunny air, and the sun is now a genial orb whose warm rays cheer but not excoriate. (Frank Richard Stockton, The Late Mrs Null)

Every blow that shakes it will serve to harden it against a future stroke; as constant labour thickens the skin of the hand, and strengthens its muscles instead of wasting them away: so that a day of arduous toil, that might excoriate a lady's palm, would make no sensible impression on that of a hardy ploughman. ( Anne Bronte, Agnes Grey)

Origin:

'to flay, strip off the skin of, to break and remove the outer layers of the skin in any manner,' early 15c, from Late Latin excoriatus, past participle of excoriare 'flay, strip off the hide,' from Latin ex 'out, out of, off' + corium 'hide, skin'. Figurative sense of 'denounce, censure' is recorded in English by 1708. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

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) (Merriam-Webster)