Lancinate

verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To pierce or stab (as with a lance); to lance. transitive

    "Through a minuscule pinhole in that lead block, he could now direct tiny, controlled doses of a furiously potent beam of X-rays [...] to lancinate any cancer cell to death."

Adjective
  1. 1
    painful as if caused by a sharp instrument wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
agonizebloodychefchibchingchive

Example

More examples

"Through a minuscule pinhole in that lead block, he could now direct tiny, controlled doses of a furiously potent beam of X-rays [...] to lancinate any cancer cell to death."

Etymology

First attested in 1603; borrowed from Latin lancinātus, perfect passive participle of lancinō, see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Cognate with French lanciner.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.