Decorticate (verb).
- To remove the bark, rind, or husk from; to strip of its bark. Hence, to divest of what conceals, to expose.
- To ‘flay’ or to peel.
Decorticate (adjective).
- Destitute of a cortex or cortical layer (applied specifically to some lichens).
When I was a child I remember my mother always used to describe a peculiarly tasteless wine (usually her own home-made wine) as being “like decorticated cardboard”. Somehow one didn’t have to be told exactly what the word meant!