flay
/fleɪ
/verb [with object]
1Strip the skin off (a corpse or carcass): the captured general was flayed alive...
- His carcass was also flayed, the skin torn into pieces and sold as souvenirs.
- A young man is suspended naked from a tree, prior to being flayed alive for daring to make music more harmonious than Apollo's.
- Employees who do not comply will be flayed alive and slowly chopped into little pieces.
Synonyms
skin, strip the skin off
technical excoriate
1.1Strip (the skin) off a corpse or carcass: she flayed the white skin from the flesh...
- He would flay the flesh of unresurrected corpses and use the skin to make lampshades and chair covers and clothes.
- Acerbus ripped him apart, flaying his skin and then breaking his bones.
- Had the child before her been real, she would have flayed the skin from her bones with a thousand hungry spiders.
1.2Whip or beat (someone) so harshly as to remove their skin: he flayed them viciously with a branch...
- One held him in a firm grasp, while the guards watched from the near; and Viro faced the butte, his back naked, as the woman flayed him again and again with a horse-whip.
- The enemy stood shocked as the heavy weapon flayed him open, and he fell to the ground.
- They should flog him and flay him if they so desire.
1.3Criticize severely and brutally: he flayed the government for not moving fast enough on economic reform...
- Where I part company with many of the American critics who have flayed the film, is in their assumption that this is a thriller whose subject is murder, and which fails to deliver suspense before the killer is unmasked.
- Could a professional game critic ever make the transition to game designer without having the games he/she produces flayed alive by the gaming press?
- If this is something he has started doing because he is captain (remember, he was flayed in the 2003 World Cup for doing it), then it is a very curious development.
Synonyms
criticize, attack, berate, censure, condemn, denounce, denigrate, revile, castigate, pillory, belabour, lambaste, savage, tear/pull to pieces, find fault with, run down, abuse
informal knock, slam, pan, bash, take apart, crucify, hammer, lay into, roast, skewer, bad-mouth
British informal slate, rubbish, slag off, monster
North American informal pummel, cut up
Australian/New Zealand informal bag
rare excoriate
Derivatives
flayer
/ noun ...- It was an infusion of sulphur and gold, two things flayers could not stand.
- That flayer has a sense of humor if he stuffed him in the very work that this guard came for.
- He jumped and kicked the flayer square in the face, rolled to kill his speed, and managed to keep a firm grip on Kioshi and avoid getting gored by both her sword and the flayer's claws.
Origin
Old English flēan, of Germanic origin; related to Middle Dutch vlaen.