Excoriate vs execrate

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Grammarist

Excoriate and execrate are two words that sometimes confused. We will examine the difference in meaning between the words excoriate and execrate, where these terms came from and some examples of their use in sentences.

Excoriate means to severely criticize someone or something, often publicly. When someone is excoriated, the criticism is so severe it might be considered thorough, debilitating, and difficult to recover from. Excoriate is also used in a medical sense to mean to remove damaged skin. Excoriate is a transitive verb, which is a verb that takes an object. Related words are excoriates, excoriated, excoriating, excoriation. The word excoriate is derived from the word excoriatus which means to strip off skin.

Execrate means to feel extreme disgust, to dislike something heartily. Execrate is a transitive verb, which is a verb that takes an object. Related words are execrates, execrated, execrating. The word execrate is used very rarely. It is derived from the Latin word execrari which means to curse or to hate something.

Examples

Even while being excoriated by a bevy of detractors, hip-hop music has influenced movements ranging from Los Angeles gang truces to nationwide voter registration drives. (The Advocate)

Whether Democrats have “excoriated” Page, a tangential figure in Trump’s circle with clear links to Russia, is beside the point. (The Washington Post)

“You may loathe, you may execrate, but you cannot deny her…No wine gives fiercer intoxication, no drug more vivid exaltation.” (Time Magazine)

When we enter Syracuse Stage’s production of Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of Mockingbird, we expect to execrate the outrages of our Jim Crow past but feel elevated that one Alabama lawyer rose above the moral muck. (The Syracuse New Times)