scour
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈskaʊə/
ipa: /ˈskaʊɚ/
ipa: /skaʊɹ/
ipa: /skæɔə/
ipa: /ˈskæʊə/
rhymes: -aʊə(ɹ)
rhymes: -aʊ.ə(ɹ)
Forms: form: scours
form: scouring
form: scoured
form: scoured
form: scower
Etymology: From Middle English scǒuren, scure, skoure (“to move quickly; to travel around in search of enemies”), from scǒur (“attack, conflict; pang of emotional suffering”), from Old Norse skýra (“to rush in”) and skúr (“a shower; a shower of missiles”), perhaps influenced by the verb scǒuren: see etymology 1.
Senses: examples: text: They scoured the scene of the crime for clues.
text: A search engine will scour the web for you.
text: Tashtego's long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding eyes— […] all this sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main.
ref: 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Knights and Squires”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 131:
text: Her dad had been on benefits for years so she never ever received pocket money. When she walked to school she would scour the pavements for coins.
ref: 2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:
glosses: To search an area thoroughly.
examples: text: Lord. Behind the tuft of Pines I met them, neuer
Saw I men scowre so on their way: I eyed them
Euen to their Ships.
ref: c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
text: So four fierce Courſers ſtarting to the Race, / Scow'r thro' the Plain, and lengthen ev'ry Pace: / Nor Reigns, nor Curbs, nor threat'ning Cries they fear, / But force along the trembling Charioteer.
ref: 1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 70, lines 690–693:
text: This particularly obtains in all Parliamentary affairs. Whether the business in hand be to get a man in, or get a man out, or get a man over, or promote a railway, or jockey a railway, or what else, nothing is understood to be so effectual as scouring nowhere in a violent hurry—in short, as taking cabs and going about.
ref: 1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1865, →OCLC:
glosses: To run with speed; to scurry.
examples: text: When Ajax ſtrives, ſome Rock's vaſt Weight to throw, / The Line too labours, and the Words move ſlow; / Not ſo, when ſwift Camilla ſcours the plain, / Flies o'er th'unbending Corn, and skims along the Main.
ref: 1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC, pages 22–23:
text: We near him! We near him [an ostrich]! Ah, laggard, 'tis vain / That with rapid feet casting the dusty clouds back, / In circles wide wheeling, thou scourest the plain, / For Ayoud, untiring, is close on thy track.
ref: 1844 March, W[illiam] S[tarbuck] Mayo, “The Bedouin”, in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, volume XIV, number LXIX, Washington, D.C.: Langtree & [John Louis] O'Sullivan, →OCLC, page 290:
glosses: To move swiftly over; to brush along.
Related terms: scoury