Sample sentences for EXCORIATE

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Definition

express strong disapproval of

Much more rarely, excoriate can mean to tear or wear off the skin or make sore by abrading; as in: The unaccustomed digging excoriated his hands.

We must excoriate such behavior.

Critics excoriated her for voting to raise taxes.
Louie sat by, listening as his bride was excoriated for marrying him, trying in vain to get her to hang up.
Laura Hillenbrand -- Unbroken
Brown, as all knew, had for some time been excoriating the Vice President at every chance.
David McCullough -- John Adams
At every new attempt to look about him the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, and excoriating tears ran down his cheeks.
Thomas Hardy -- The Return of the Native
The next morning the excoriation continued.
Laura Hillenbrand -- Seabiscuit

(editor's note: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.)

The corpse of the young lady was much bruised and excoriated.
Edgar Allan Poe -- The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The provincial judge, seeing that he could get himself in a fix and might wind up on national television excoriated by the leftist press, promptly went on a fishing trip.
Isabel Allende -- The House of Spirits
He worked diligently, and he was very pleasant to us, but he excoriated the nearby villagers like Prudence who didn't take care of themselves and didn't seek medical attention early enough.
Nicholas D. Kristof -- Half the Sky
The next day, the New Haven Express ran a blistering article that excoriated Tappan for his "inhuman actions of dismembering what appeared to all present was a supportive family and genuinely safe home."
Alexs Pate -- Amistad
The mere word was anathema to him, and he stormed back and forth in excoriating condemnation, shaking a piercing finger of rebuke in the guilt-ridden faces of Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn and the poor battle-scarred captain with the submachine gun who commanded the M.P.s. Is this Russia?
Joseph Heller -- Catch-22
The diamonds and rubies seem wet, and make veiled beings in the shadow below weep, their sides bruised with the hair shirt and their iron-tipped scourges, their breasts crushed with wicker hurdles, their knees excoriated with prayer; women who think themselves wives, spectres who think themselves seraphim.
Victor Hugo -- Les Miserables
The threat, they knew, was preposterous, but the white judicial face, the thoughtful pursing of the lips, and the right hand, which she held loosely clenched, like a man's, with the forefinger extended, emphasizing her proclamation with a calm, but somehow powerful gesture, froze them with a terror no amount of fierce excoriation could have produced.
Thomas Wolfe -- Look Homeward, Angel

Then, later—the day was over, it was dark —I had fallen into a troubled half dream where my dad was excoriating me for screwing up some air travel reservations when I became aware of lights in the hallway, a tiny backlit shadow —Pippa, coming suddenly into the room with stumbling step almost like someone had pushed her, looking doubtfully behind her, saying: "Should I wake him?"
Donna Tartt -- The Goldfinch
...the more he rubs it so that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb—as he rubs, and puffs, and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more conveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well bent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his knees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for him to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one...
Charles Dickens -- Bleak House
What excoriations in his lamentable existence!
Victor Hugo -- Les Miserables
Adams was inevitably excoriated as a monarchist, more British than American, and therefore a bad man.
David McCullough -- John Adams
Perhaps Riddle felt the sting of his public excoriation.
Laura Hillenbrand -- Seabiscuit

Howard, uncomfortable with Smith's excoriation of Workman, made a point of praising the jockey to reporters.
Laura Hillenbrand -- Seabiscuit

But if they gave him 130 or fewer pounds, they risked the ire of rival horsemen and the excoriation of journalists.
Laura Hillenbrand -- Seabiscuit

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