offscouring
Americannoun
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Often offscourings. something scoured off; filth; refuse.
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a social outcast.
Etymology
Origin of offscouring
1520–30; off + scour 1 ( def. ), + -ing 1 ( def. ), after verb phrase scour off
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They were the despised and rejected, the wretched and the spat upon, the earth’s offscouring; and he was in their company, and they would swallow up his soul.
From "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin
The offscouring of all London flocked to the Sunday services as to a public entertainment.
From Church History, Vol. 3 of 3 by J. H. Kurtz
Truly, as says the apostle, we are the offscouring of the earth, and we now stink in the nostrils of the men of the world.
From History of the Rise of the Huguenots Vol. 1 by Henry Martyn Baird
We are made as the filth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things unto this day.'
From Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts by Alexander Maclaren
Where, on the contrary, its exercise is regarded as the badge of dishonor and the vile office of the refuse and offscouring of the race, its largess must be proportionably meagre and scanty.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 02, December, 1857 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
