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scourge

Pronunciation: /skɜːd͡ʒ/

The English word “scourge” has 8 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A whip, often made of leather and having multiple tails; a lash.
  2. A person or thing regarded as an agent of divine punishment.
  3. A source of persistent (and often widespread) pain and suffering or trouble, such as a cruel ruler, disease, pestilence, or war.

verb

  1. To strike (a person, an animal, etc.) with a scourge (noun etymology 1 sense 1) or whip; to flog, to whip.
  2. To drive, or force (a person, an animal, etc.) to move, with or as if with a scourge or whip.
  3. To punish (a person, an animal, etc.); to chastise.
  4. To cause (someone or something) persistent (and often widespread) pain and suffering or trouble; to afflict, to torment.
  5. Of a crop or a farmer: to deplete the fertility of (land or soil).

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”),…

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