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lacerate

[las-uh-rayt, las-uh-rayt, -er-it] / ˈlæs əˌreɪt, ˈlæs əˌreɪt, -ər ɪt /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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While large shards of plastic can lacerate organ walls, the smaller particles, known as microplastics, can be just as deleterious.

From Salon ● Mar. 8, 2023

When Brady doesn’t face quick pressure, he is typically able to lacerate opposing defenses with short passes.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 30, 2019

Despite the carping of her critics, Clinton does in fact lacerate herself for losing.

From Slate ● Sep. 14, 2017

Commercial radio did not arrive until 1920, and 1916 phonographs would lacerate 2017 sensibilities, as would 1916’s silent movies.

From Washington Post ● May 5, 2017

Calyptra minute, lacerate, persistent at the base of the capsule.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray

Baumbach’s signature serio-comic touch, in which the humor lacerates as much as the drama, should be in full effect here.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2025

This summer lacerates us as we gradually accept that warnings won’t work.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 9, 2021

This left Levy feeling like the possibility of motherhood has been cut off, and she lacerates herself for imagining she had it within her power to create a new kind of improvised family.

From Slate ● Apr. 10, 2017

As it is, spare a thought for likely runner-up, Michelle Williams for Manchester by the Sea, who lacerates your heart in a fraction of Davis’ screen time.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 23, 2017

Throughout his life he seems to have made a hobby of the literature that arouses violent emotion and mental excitement, or lacerates the nerves, or shocks and startles.

From The Tale of Terror A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead

"I'm convinced that if my nerve was lacerated tomorrow I would have our implant put in," he said.

From BBC ● Feb. 10, 2026

“We have been lacerated by the tentacles of corruption and by criminal networks that have profoundly marked the life of our country,” Zelaya wrote on X on Monday.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 9, 2025

He left the room, returning with a metronome whose loud, mechanical clicking lacerated the otherwise-fine mood being created by a Bach record on the turntable.

From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2025

Barabak: She lacerated Trump, citing his role inciting the Jan. 6 riot, his felony conviction for election interference and a jury’s finding he was liable for sexual abuse.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2024

She narrowed her eyes and curled her lacerated fingertips into her palms.

From "The Reader" by Traci Chee

With barely a greeting to the rest of the musicians, he starts to sing, challenging their earsplitting guitars with his lacerating sneers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026

Trade bible Variety called it a "lacerating portrait," while Deadline said the "damning" film had "thrashed" Musk as "petty, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, cruel."

From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026

Twenty years ago, Health was a lacerating noise band in a downtown L.A. nightclub, the Smell, famous for ear-splitting acts.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2026

Instead, with deep feeling and lacerating and gentle words, Leigh creates a world that, like the vast, mysterious one hovering outside its frame, can seem agonizingly empty if you can’t see the people in it.

From New York Times ● Dec. 6, 2024

This impression was dispelled early on when a probationer in Briony’s year, a large, kindly, slow-moving girl with a cow’s harmless gaze, met the lacerating force of the ward sister’s fury.

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan


Vocabulary lists containing lacerate

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