How to Use flay in a Sentence

flay

verb
  • After a few more tries, the doctor pulled it out in one piece and laid it out, legs flayed.
    — Scottie Andrew, CNN, 23 Aug. 2019
  • Other works depict elephants killed for their tusks and trees flayed of their bark.
    — Washington Post, 8 Oct. 2019
  • Future is, of course, no stranger to flaying himself on records.
    — Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 6 July 2018
  • For that, Pelosi was flayed on Twitter by left-wing accounts.
    — The Washington Post, The Denver Post, 17 May 2017
  • Dwight grabbed my arm, wrenching my hand out of my pocket, flaying it like a fish, pulling me along.
    — Literary Hub, 15 May 2026
  • Some of the homes were shoved off their concrete footings, while others had their roofs flayed off by the wind.
    — Michael Loria, USA TODAY, 29 Sep. 2024
  • The apostle was believed to have met his martyrdom by being flayed alive.
    — Virginia Raguin, The Conversation, 19 Feb. 2026
  • Pedraza had been shot in the head and decapitated, and the skin had been flayed from her skull.
    — Washington Post, 12 Oct. 2017
  • Inside, a man is stretching skin on a flaying bench, and the stench of death is overwhelming.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 26 June 2023
  • On her right side, the skin was flayed off, probably as the porpoise struggled while drowning in the net.
    — Rod Nordland, New York Times, 27 Apr. 2017
  • The camps were thrifty, too, weaving carpets from human hair, flaying skin to make lampshades.
    — Hugh Hunter, Philly.com, 27 Feb. 2018
  • Perfect for flaying open your heart on a summer afternoon, with a glass of something cool to soothe the sting.
    — Olivia Waite, New York Times, 23 June 2023
  • The narrator may be flayed open, but the other characters are held at arm’s length, vague and bloodless.
    — Naomi Huffman, The Atlantic, 22 Jan. 2024
  • Bodies are flayed open, ripped apart at the ribs, viscera spilling, hung like cattle at the butcher; sores and lesions bloom on skin.
    — Nina MacLaughlin, BostonGlobe.com, 18 July 2019
  • If the robot, who frequently metamorphoses, gives shape to some form of justice, it’s flayed down to a name.
    — Elisa Gonzalez, The New Yorker, 3 Feb. 2025
  • Christ looked as dead as Uday Hussein, his welts dark and crusty, knees flayed, and feet, hands, and shoulder joints swollen black.
    — Nell Zink, Harper's magazine, 28 Oct. 2019
  • Frankness is admirable—this, after all, is our world; these things happen—but flaying our eyeballs like this, not so much.
    — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 26 July 2024
  • The Indians tie Clyde to the Skinning Tree and flay him alive.
    — Jennifer Percy, Harper's magazine, 20 Jan. 2020
  • Fain flayed the White House for failing to attach to the loan safeguards to protect existing jobs.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2023
  • For white liberals there is a kind of ecstasy to be achieved by flaying themselves with Coates’s hot, stinging words.
    — Kyle Smith, National Review, 21 Sep. 2017
  • They are usually flayed in the media with a torrent of negative coverage.
    — John Fund, National Review, 8 Oct. 2017
  • Much like zombies in Day of the Dead, the flayed are drawn to the steelworks where their bodies literally melt.
    — Amy MacKelden, Harper's BAZAAR, 4 July 2019
  • The critics who flay Ryan as a coward have never understood that his actions are a form of idealism.
    — Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, 11 Apr. 2018
  • The caller reported a man talking to himself, staring at girls and flaying his arms everywhere.
    — Staff Report, Orange County Register, 6 June 2017
  • The end came with England on 50-0, with Stokes flaying Foulkes to Mitchell at mid-on.
    — ABC News, 28 June 2026
  • One is contested on grass as scores of limbs flay about for 90 minutes in front of thousands of passionate onlookers.
    — Don Riddell and Daniel Gallan, CNN, 21 Aug. 2019
  • Cunningham is happy to flay Tillis, but has little appetite to elevate the national stakes.
    — Jonathan Martin New York Times, Star Tribune, 22 Sep. 2020
  • These days, 25 Water Street is getting flayed and disemboweled.
    — Curbed, 24 Jan. 2024
  • Rushworth and his buddies got their revenge the next day at the ditch race, where Jewell flayed Miettinen the Finn to take first place.
    — Sol Neelman, WIRED, 10 Sep. 2012
  • Grammy winner Williams flays the mysterious character, and opens the show with her powerful vocals.
    — Dave Quinn, People.com, 24 Oct. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'flay.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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