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Definition of "scathing" []

  • Bitterly denunciatory; harshly critical: "a scathing tract on the uselessness of war” ( Pierre Brodin). (adjective)
  • Harmful or painful; injurious. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "scathing" in a sentence
  • "ZAHN: Finally tonight, a lot of questions raised in this NASA report, what some describe as a scathing report on the leadership at NASA and a lot of debate about whether you can ever convince the American public it's worth exploring Mars."
  • "When I showed her the weekly letters which her daughter had written me, and photographs of Baby which she had sent, and the Dominion Express Company's receipts for large sums of money which I had sent from Winnipeg, she denounced her daughter and her daughter's husband in scathing terms."
  • "But in short, scathing words and significant change of metre he reverses the picture to show his view of it, when, in the companion song of"