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
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It is here called "The offscouring of the British land."
From Microcosmography or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters by Earle, John
Never did the universe before witness so astonishing a spectacle, as a nation destroyed as a nation, but preserved as individuals--preserved to suffer, and to be accounted the offscouring of all things.
From Female Scripture Biographies, Volume II by Cox, Francis Augustus
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 Maclaren, Alexander
We are made as it were the filthiness of the world, the offscouring of all things, even unto this time.
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.