Excoriate: meaning and SAT practice
Excoriate (verb) means: To severely criticize or harshly condemn someone or something.
Excoriate in a sentence
The newspaper columnist excoriated the mayor's decision to cut funding from public schools.
Similar: criticize, condemn, censure, attack. Opposite: praise, commend.
SAT-style practice: what does “excoriate” most nearly mean?
The newspaper columnist excoriated the mayor's decision to cut funding from public schools.
As used in the sentence, “excoriate” most nearly means
- shirk
- exaggerating
- lie
- criticize
Show the answer
Answer: D. “excoriate” means: To severely criticize or harshly condemn someone or something. “criticize” is the closest match in this sentence. The other choices are real SAT-level words, but none of them carries that meaning here.
On the digital SAT this is the “Words in Context” skill, about 7 of the 54 Reading and Writing questions. The test asks what a word means as used in the passage, so a word’s most common meaning is not always the answer. More of these, with full explanations, are on SAT Words in Context practice questions.
Want to know which SAT skills you are actually missing? Take the free diagnostic. No account needed to start.