exuviate

Definition

To shed or cast off a covering, especially a skin; to slough; to molt (moult).

Etymology

From Latin exuviae (“what is shed”), from exuō (“cast off, strip”).

Example Sentences

• "Like any arthropod encased in a rigid exoskeleton, a trilobite must periodically moult, or exuviate, in order to grow."
• "Although multicultural societies are difficult to manage, they need not become a political nightmare and might even become exciting if we exuviate our long traditional preoccupation with a culturally homogeneous and tightly structured polity and allow them instead to intimate their own appropriate institutional forms, modes of governance, and moral and political virtues."

Related Words