Why this word is great
EXCORIATE — [Verb] To censure or denounce with severe criticism, a figurative extension of its original meaning to strip off the skin. From Late Latin excoriatus, past participle of excoriare ("to strip, flay"), from Latin ex- ("off, from") + corium ("hide, skin"). Unlike "reprove," which implies a mild, corrective chiding, or "lambaste," which suggests a blunt, pummeling attack, to excoriate is to perform a meticulous, surgical flaying. It is the acid-etched prose of a critic's dismantling review, the forensic indictment that strips a policy to its rotten core, or the private rebuke so precise it leaves the soul raw—a verbal violence that aims not to wound but to denude. The most lasting wounds are inflicted not with a club, but with a scalpel.