# scourge

Pronunciation: say "SKURJ" US /skɜɹd͡ʒ/, UK /skɜːd͡ʒ/

## Noun

1. A cause of lasting and often widespread pain, suffering or trouble, such as a cruel ruler, a disease, a plague or a war.
   - Simple: Something or someone that causes a lot of pain or trouble for a long time, like a disease or a war.
   - _Robocalls have become a modern scourge, and regulators are struggling to stop them._
   - _For centuries smallpox and famine were the twin scourges of the countryside._
3. A whip or lash, often made of leather and having several tails.
   - Simple: A whip, often made of leather and having several long strips.
   - _The guard lifted a scourge of knotted leather cords._
   - _Among the relics in the chapel were two scourges with braided tails._
5. Someone or something viewed as sent by God to inflict punishment.
   - Simple: A person or thing that people believe was sent by God to punish them.
   - _Chroniclers called the invading warlord the scourge of God, sent to punish a sinful people._
   - _The preacher declared the plague a scourge for the town's wickedness._

## Verb

2. To afflict or torment someone or something with lasting, often widespread suffering or trouble.
   - Simple: To cause a lot of pain or trouble to people or places for a long time.
   - _Gang violence continues to scourge neighborhoods that the city has long neglected._
   - _Drought scourged the region for most of a decade, emptying farms and towns alike._
4. To beat a person or animal with a scourge or other whip.
   - Simple: To hit a person or animal with a whip.
   - _In some medieval processions, penitents would scourge themselves until they bled._
   - _The prisoner was scourged in the courtyard and then thrown into a cell._
6. To punish or chastise a person or animal.
   - Simple: To punish someone for doing wrong.
   - _The prophets warned that heaven would scourge the nation for its sins._
   - _The editorial scourged city officials for ignoring repeated safety warnings._
7. To drive or force a person or animal to move, with a whip or as if with one.
   - Simple: To make a person or animal move by whipping them, or as if by whipping them.
   - _Bitter winds scourge the sheep down from the high pasture every fall._
   - _Hunger scourged the refugees onward through the mountain passes._
8. Of a crop or farmer, to impoverish land or soil by stripping it of its fertility. *(dialectal, Scotland)*
   - Simple: Of a crop or a farmer, to use up the goodness in soil so it no longer grows crops well.
   - _A greedy tenant might scourge the land in the last years of his lease._
   - _Flax scourged the soil so badly that the field lay in grass for years afterwards._

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 3, 5** — From Middle English scourge, "a lash, whip; affliction, calamity", from Anglo-Norman scorge, escorge or Old French escourge, escorge, which come either from Vulgar Latin *excoriāta, "strip of hide", from Late Latin excoriāre, "to skin" (Latin ex- + corium, "skin, hide"), or from Latin ex- + corrigia, "a whip". Alternatively, the Middle English noun may come from the verb scourgen.
**Meanings 2, 4, 6–8** — From Middle English scourgen, "to whip, scourge; to afflict; to punish", either formed from the noun scourge + -en, or from Anglo-Norman escorger and Old French escorgier, "to whip, to scourge". The French verb comes either from the noun scourge, from Vulgar Latin *excorrigiō (Latin ex- + corrigia, "a whip"), or directly from Late Latin excoriāre.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/scourge (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).