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excoriate

/ɪkˈskɔɹ.iˌeɪt/verb

excoriate is a verb meaning “To remove the skin and/or fur of, to flay, to skin” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-X-C-O-R-I-A-T-E and has 4 syllables, and it appears about once in every 23 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does excoriate mean?

verb

  1. 1

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

  2. 2

    To wear off the skin of; to chafe.

  3. 3

    To strongly condemn or criticize.

    The teacher continued to excoriate the student after his academic issues.

adjective

  1. 1

    obsoleteExcoriated.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce excoriate?

  • US /ɪkˈskɔɹ.iˌeɪt/
  • US /ɪkˈskoʊɹ.iˌeɪt/

Excoriate has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-excoriate.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of excoriate

  • excoriates present, singular, he/she/it
  • excoriating participle, present
  • excoriated participle, past
  • more excoriate comparative
  • most excoriate superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is excoriate?

Excoriate appears about once in every 23 million words in written English, the 145,125th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Excoriate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchexcorier (to wear off the skin of), fustiger (to strongly denounce or censure)
Germanabschürfen, abscheuern, wund reiben (to wear off the skin of), scharf verurteilen, vernichtend kritisieren, mit vernichtender Kritik überziehen (to strongly denounce or censure)
Portugueseescoriar (to wear off the skin of)
Spanishexcoriar (to wear off the skin of), fustigar (to strongly denounce or censure)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does excoriate come 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.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).