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

To a not inhuman creature, in such a case, a title to sorrow, that will lessen the distance between his own heart and the one he has to lacerate, is almost a relief.

From When Ghost Meets Ghost by William Frend De Morgan

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

If this letter lacerates you, do the same by it.

From Les Misérables by Isabel Florence Hapgood

"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

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

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

Ms. MeLampy is at her best when she eschews personal narrative in favor of her lacerating accounts of the animal festivals she visits.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025

"But all the while he's lacerating and battering himself about not being able to write, because, for him, writing only meant writing the novel."

From BBC ● Mar. 23, 2024

On Friday, he continued his streak of lacerating rulings.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 16, 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