offscouring

American  

[awf-skau^uhr-ing, -skau-er-, of-] / ˈɔfˌskaʊər ɪŋ, -ˌskaʊ ər-, ˈɒf- /

noun

1. Often offscourings. something scoured off; filth; refuse.

2. a social outcast.

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Etymology

Origin of offscouring

1520–30; off + scour ¹ ( def. ), + -ing ¹ ( def. ), after verb phrase scour off

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

offscouring

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

We are made as it were the filthiness of the world, the offscouring of all things, even unto this time.

From The first New Testament printed in English by

Isaac Stuart is not a leading member of a church consisting, as the early churches chiefly consisted, of what the world regard as the dregs of society—"the offscouring of all things."

From The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4 by American Anti-Slavery Society

The third is—to her coffin; broken down; beggared, perhaps starving, she’ll die surrounded by the offscouring of the earth—happy if she reaches her grave before she has run her full course.’

From The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 Volume 23, Number 5 by Lewis Gaylord Clark

That woman, his wife," she concluded, "made me feel that I was of the scum and offscouring of the earth, and they've made me feel so here, too—even these wretched paupers.

From He Fell in Love with His Wife by Edward Payson Roe

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