lacerate

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

New verbs entered the surf lexicon: shred, tear, lacerate.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 26, 2019

It’s a story that will lacerate your heart.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 9, 2019

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

From Slate ● Sep. 14, 2017

But the burghers were not at all satisfied, and shouted to him to stick his penknife into and to lacerate the letter of avowal in a similar fashion.

From Bartholomew Sastrow Being the Memoirs of a German Burgomaster by Bartholomew Sastrow

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

The district court lacerates the argument simply by restating it:

From Slate ● Dec. 4, 2023

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

From Washington Post ● Aug. 9, 2021

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

It is not pain that lacerates; it cuts, and cuts clean when we keep ourselves still and let it do its merciful ministry upon us.

From Expositions of Holy Scripture Psalms by Alexander Maclaren

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

From BBC ● Feb. 10, 2026

Judge Cote lacerated the plaintiff attorneys for cherry-picking evidence and ignoring studies that have found no causal link.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 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

Rookie second-round pick Luke Musgrave, the Packers’ starting tight end to open the season, has missed the last six games with a lacerated kidney.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 5, 2024

It was well past midnight by the time Kote made it back to Newarre with Chronicler’s limp body slung across his lacerated shoulders.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

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

The writing in that book is sardonic and lacerating, but it doesn’t dazzle for its own sake.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 11, 2026

Despite those assurances, she and her agency have been the subject of lacerating critiques from Carter, the federal judge.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2025

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