scourge

Inherited from Middle English scourge, from Old French escorgier (“to whip”), from Vulgar Latin *excorrigiō, from Latin ex- (“thoroughly”) + corrigia (“thong, whip”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /skɜːd͡ʒ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /skɝd͡ʒ/
  • (US, also) IPA^(key): /skɔɹd͡ʒ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

  Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)d͡ʒ

scourge (plural scourges)

1. A source of persistent trouble such as pestilence that causes pain and suffering or widespread destruction.

   Graffiti is the scourge of building owners everywhere.

   • 1818, [Mary Shelley], chapter II, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume II, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, OCLC 830979744, page 30:

     On you it rests, whether I quit for ever the neighbourhood of man, and lead a harmless life, or become the scourge of your fellow-creatures, and the author of your own speedy ruin.

2. A means to inflict such pain or destruction.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene iv]:

     What scourge for perjury / Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?

   • 2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist‎, volume 407, number 8838, page 11:

     America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 ([…]): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.

   1. A whip, often of leather and often multi-tailed.

      He flogged him with a scourge.

      • 1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, OCLC 1002865976; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, OCLC 987451380:

        Up to coach then goes / The observed maid, takes both the scourge and reins.

      • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 99:

        These men lashed themselves and each other unmercifully with knotted leather scourges until the blood ran, two or three times daily.

• knout
• cat
• cat o' nine tails
• cat-o'-nine-tails

scourge (third-person singular simple present scourges, present participle scourging, simple past and past participle scourged)

1. To strike with a scourge; to flog.

• (to whip or scourge): Thesaurus:whip

• Scourge in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
• Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “scourge”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• scrouge