scourge
UK /skɜːd͡ʒ/ · US /skɜɹd͡ʒ/ noun, verb
Forms scourges scourging scourged scourgest scourgedst scourgeth
- noun (weaponry, chiefly historical) A whip, often made of leather and having multiple tails; a lash. “He flogged him with a scourge.”
- noun A person or thing regarded as an agent of divine punishment.
- noun A source of persistent (and often widespread) pain and suffering or trouble, such as a cruel ruler, disease, pestilence, or war. “Graffiti is the scourge of building owners everywhere.”
- verb To strike (a person, an animal, etc.) with a scourge (noun etymology 1 sense 1) or whip; to flog, to whip.
- verb To drive, or force (a person, an animal, etc.) to move, with or as if with a scourge or whip.
- verb To punish (a person, an animal, etc.); to chastise.
- verb To cause (someone or something) persistent (and often widespread) pain and suffering or trouble; to afflict, to torment.
- verb (Scotland, agriculture) Of a crop or a farmer: to deplete the fertility of (land or soil).
Synonyms
belt birch cut feague flagellate flog knout lash lather quirt scutch slash strap stripe thrash thresh whip whoop yark flagellum bane curse nemesis terror threat lay waste to waste devastate desolate ravage
Etymology
From Middle English scourge (“a lash, whip, scourge; affliction, calamity; person who causes affliction or calamity; shoot of a vine”), and then either:
* from Anglo-Norman scorge, escorge, escurge, or Old French scurge, escourge, escorge, escorgiee, escurge (modern French escourgée (“(archaic) whip made of leather strips”)), either:
** from Vulgar Latin *excoriāta (“strip of hide; a scourge”), from Late Latin excoriāre, the present active infinitive of excoriō (“to strip the skin from, to skin”), from Latin ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’) + corium (“skin; hide, leather”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off, sever; to divide, separate”)); or
** from Latin ex- (intensifying prefix) + corrigia (“a whip”) (from corrigō (“to make right, correct; to reform”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to righten; to straighten”)); or
* from Middle English scourgen (verb) (see etymology 2).
From Middle English scourgen (“to whip, scourge; to afflict; to punish”), and then either:
* from scourge (noun) + -en (suffix forming infinitives of verbs); or
* from Anglo-Norman escorger, and Old French escorgier (“to whip, to scourge”), which are either:
** from Anglo-Norman scorge, escorge (noun), etc., or Old French scurge, escourge (noun), etc. + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs); or
** from Vulgar Latin *excorrigiō, from Latin ex- (intensifying prefix) + corrigia (“a whip”); or
** directly from Late Latin excoriāre.
See further at etymology 1.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A lash; a strap or cord; especially, a lash used to inflict pain or punishment; an instrument of punishment or discipline; a whip.
- noun Hence, a means of inflicting punishment, vengeance, or suffering; an infliction of affliction; a punishment.
- verb To whip severely; to lash.
- verb To punish with severity; to chastise; to afflict, as for sins or faults, and with the purpose of correction.
Etymology [F. escourgée, fr. L. excoriata (sc. scutica) a stripped off (lash or whip), fr. excoriate to strip, to skin. See Excoriate.]
Etymology [From Scourge, n.: cf. OF. escorgier.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “scourge”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details