To excoriate a book, a play, a film, or a person is to give a very bad opinion of it in fierce words — not a mild “I didn’t enjoy it,” but a tearing-apart. Reviewers and newspaper writers like the verb; it is educated, strong, and a little showy. You will not hear it much in ordinary chat. Though actually the word had a body first. In Latin it meant to take the skin off — to flay or scrape. Doctors still use it that way: a badly fitting shoe can excoriate your heel; skin can be excoriated. The review sense is that picture used on language. Both senses are about stripping a surface. The old adjective use (already skinned) is now rare.

痛批；痛斥