The Wednesday Word: Eviscerate

eviscerate. verb. To remove the entrails from; to disembowel.

This is a brilliant word. It's Latin-based: from viscera (itself also a nice, graphic kinda word) meaning "guts", "internal organs" or "intestines" and from e- which just means "taking/going out" or stuff of that mindset. Put together, it's certainly a nicer, cooler-sounding alternative to "disembowel" or "gut" (especially since you then don't have to say "bowel" which... y'know...). So if you just so happen to be writing about a really violent fight, a yoma eating the guts out of some poor guy, or anything like that, eviscerate is a nice choice to consider.

For general writing, though, eviscerate has an even better use as a metaphor or hyperbole:

4Kids completely eviscerated everything good about One Piece!

I say with no sense of shame whatsoever that Samantha eviscerated me in yesterday's debate.

What can I possibly do to you? I shall eviscerate you in fiction. Every pimple, every character flaw... I was naked for a day, you'll be naked for an eternity...

Great word, huh?

(adjective/participle form: eviscerating; noun form: evisceration, eviscerator)

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