scourge
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /skɜːd͡ʒ/
ipa: /skɜɹd͡ʒ/
ipa: [skɔɹd͡ʒ]
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)dʒ
Forms: form: scourges
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).
Cognates
Italian scuriada, scuriata
Senses: examples: text: He flogged him with a scourge.
text: Yf they breake myne ordinaunces, and kepe not my commaundementes. I vil vyſet their offences with the rodde, and their ſynnes with ſcourges.
ref: 1535 October 14 (Gregorian calendar), Myles Coverdale, transl., Biblia: The Byble, […] (Coverdale Bible), [Cologne or Marburg]: [Eucharius Cervicornus and Johannes Soter?], →OCLC, Psalm lxxxviij:[31–32], folio xxvij, verso, column 1:
text: My father layd vpon you a heauie yoke, vvhich I vvil make heauier: my father bette you vvith ſcourges, but I vvil beate you vvith ſcorpions.
ref: 1609, The Holie Bible, […] (Douay–Rheims Bible), Doway: Lavrence Kellam, […], →OCLC, 2 Paralipomenon 10:11, page 886:
text: Up to coach then goes / Th' observed Maid, takes both the scourge and reins, / And to her side her handmaid straight attains.
ref: 1614–1615, Homer, “The Sixth Book of Homer’s Odysseys”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume I, London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC, page 136, lines 111–113:
text: [H]eaven-born truth, / And moderation fair, vvere the red marks / Of ſuperſtition's ſcourge: […]
ref: a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Winter”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC, page 204, lines 1059–1061:
text: Mortify / Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; / Smite, shrink not, spare not.
ref: 1833 (date written), Alfred Tennyson, “St. Simeon Stylites”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 61:
text: Another strange manifestation of collective mental abnormality, though not directly connected with sorcery, was the Brotherhood of Flagellants. […] These men lashed themselves and each other unmercifully with knotted leather scourges until the blood ran, two or three times daily.
ref: 1936, Rollo Ahmed, “The Church and Monastic Black Magic”, in The Black Art, London: Senate, Studio Editions, published 1994, →ISBN, page 99:
topics: engineering
government
military
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
politics
tools
war
weaponry
glosses: A whip, often made of leather and having multiple tails; a lash.
examples: text: And therfore the faithfull had neede of inuincible conſtancie and incredible pacience, that they may know them to be gods squorges, and the inſtrumentes of his wrath, […]
ref: 1574, Augustine Marlorate [i.e., Augustin Marlorat], “[Revelation 2:3]”, in Arthur Golding, transl., A Catholike Exposition vpon the Reuelation of Sainct Iohn. […], London: […] H[enry] Binneman, for L[ucas] Harison, and G[eorge] Bishop, →OCLC, folio 32, verso:
text: Againe not long after this euen ſhortly after the death of Alaricus came that Flagellum Dei that ſcourge of God into Italy, Attila King of the Hunnes, and ſpoyled the country vvith maruailous hoſtility in the time of the Emperour Martian.
ref: 1611, Thomas Coryate [i.e., Thomas Coryat], “My Obseruations of the Most Glorious, Peerelesse, and Mayden Citie of Venice: […]”, in Coryats Crudities Hastily Gobled Vp in Five Moneths Trauells […], London: […] W[illiam] S[tansby for the author], →OCLC, page 162, lines 14–18:
text: [I]f Attila equalled the hoſtile ravages of Tamerlane, either the Tartar or the Hun might deſerve the epithet of the Scourge of God.
ref: 1781, Edward Gibbon, “The Character, Conquests, and Court of Attila, King of the Huns—Death of Theodosius the Younger—Elevation of Marcian to the Empire of the East”, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume III, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, page 368:
text: [H]e, / As he is wont, came to upbraid and curse, / Mocking our poverty, and telling us / Such was God's scourge for disobedient sons.
ref: 1819, Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, The Cenci: A Tragedy, […], [Livorno], Italy: […] [Percy B. Shelley] for C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier […], →OCLC, Act III, scene i, page 48:
text: Yet true destructive power is power just the same as constructive. Even Attila, the Scourge of God, who helped to scourge the Roman world out of existence, was great with power. He was the scourge of God; not the scourge of the League of Nations, hired and paid in cash.
ref: 1925, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Blessed are the Powerful”, in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, 1st American edition, Philadelphia, Pa.: The Centaur Press, →OCLC, page 157:
glosses: A person or thing regarded as an agent of divine punishment.
examples: text: Graffiti is the scourge of building owners everywhere.
text: Thou ominous and fearefull Ovvle of death, / Our Nations terror, and their bloody ſcourge, / The period of thy Tyranny approacheth, / On vs thou canſt not enter but by death: […]
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 111, column 2:
text: [W]hat ſcourge for periury, / Can this darke monarchy afford falſe Clarence, […]
ref: c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv], signature [C4], verso:
text: Intemperance is the plague of ſenſualitie; and temperance is not her ſcourge, but rather her ſeaſoning.
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, “Of Experience”, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book III, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 661:
text: You haue bin a ſcourge to her enemies, you haue bin a Rod to her Friends, you haue not indeede loued the Common people.
ref: c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii], page 12, column 2:
text: Cimon […] vvhoſe genius, riſing ſtrong, / Shook off the load of young debauch; abroad / The ſcourge of Perſian pride, at home the friend / Of every vvorth and every ſplendid art; […]
ref: a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Winter”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC, page 181, lines 466–469:
text: 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.
ref: 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume II, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 30:
text: […] I speak it not / As loving parliaments, which, as they have been / In the right hand of bold bad mighty kings / The scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate.
ref: a. 1823 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Charles the First. A Fragment.”, in William Michael Rossetti, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: […], revised edition, volume II, London: E[dward] Moxon, Son, & Co., […], published 1870, →OCLC, Act I, scene ii, page 385:
text: [H]e had become a monster of cruelty, having in him the same temper as of old made the tyrants of Padova and Verona and Brescia the scourges of their generation.
ref: 1882, Ouida [pseudonym; Maria Louise Ramé], chapter II, in In Maremma […], volume I, London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 23:
text: 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.
ref: 2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 May 2023, page 11:
glosses: A source of persistent (and often widespread) pain and suffering or trouble, such as a cruel ruler, disease, pestilence, or war.
Hyponyms: knout
cat
cat-o'-nine-tails
cat o' nine tails