scourge
Americannoun
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scourges
plural
noun
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a person who harasses, punishes, or causes destruction
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a means of inflicting punishment or suffering
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a whip used for inflicting punishment or torture
verb
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to whip; flog
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to punish severely
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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scourgernoun
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self-scourgingadjective
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unscourgedadjective
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unscourgingadjective
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scourginglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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scourgesimple
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scourgessimple
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have scourgedperfect
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has scourgedperfect
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am scourgingprogressive
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are scourgingprogressive
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is scourgingprogressive
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have been scourgingperfect progressive
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has been scourgingperfect progressive
Past
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scourgedsimple
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had scourgedperfect
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was scourgingprogressive
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were scourgingprogressive
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had been scourgingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of scourge
1175–1225; (noun) Middle English < Anglo-French escorge, derivative of escorgier to whip < Vulgar Latin *excorrigiāre, derivative of Latin corrigia thong, whip ( see ex- 1); (v.) Middle English < Old French escorgier
Explanation
If something makes people miserable or causes them great pain and torment, it's a scourge. A corrupt government is one kind of scourge, and a plague of insects that destroys a farmer's crops is another kind of scourge. Dating from the 13th century, scourge originally meant "a whip used as punishment." It wasn't long until the figurative meaning of "something causing pain or misery" became even more common. A scourge tends to be something that causes folks to suffer terribly, whether it's a tsunami or unjust laws. You can also use this word as a verb: "Cutting the city's transportation budget will do nothing but scourge people without cars."
Vocabulary lists containing scourge
"Of Mice and Men"
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Beowulf
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This Week in Words: September 8 - 14, 2018
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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.
See Examples For:
A co-ordinated international naval response together with private security on commercial ships successfully drove down the scourge and contained a flare-up in 2023 and 2024.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 2026
El-Sayed subsequently distanced himself, issuing a statement Monday calling anti-Semitism a "scourge."
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
Cunningham proclaims herself as a warrior for “common sense” by fighting off a scourge that no one can see.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
One country has managed to hold firm against this scourge.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
He began by making readers face the terrible illness: “About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in among us.”
From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy
Yet these scourges aren’t unique to Mexico, the author points out—they exist around the world, even in “the countries that pride themselves on being the democracies par excellence.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
A better social safety net to end this and other scourges of poverty is in order.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2024
With limited resources, governments have long seen no other option but to team with Big Pharma to develop vaccines for global scourges.
From Salon ● Oct. 5, 2023
Malaria kills mostly babies and infants, and has been one of the biggest scourges on humanity.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2023
People who once held family fortresses against wind and weather, against scourges of frost and drought and insect enemies, now cluster against the busy breast of the big town.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
He then revealed his "scourged back" as proof.
From BBC ● Dec. 8, 2022
Pope Francis, in 2013, said the shroud is an “icon of a man scourged and crucified.”
From Washington Times ● Feb. 24, 2022
The subject, from St. John’s Gospel, shows Pontius Pilate presenting the scourged and mocked Christ to the crowd.
From New York Times ● Apr. 8, 2021
Diane Offutt, eyes squeezed shut, nodded amen, as did the girlfriend, while Kovler portrayed their man as industrious and responsible, not someone fitting the profile of a shooter in a metropolis scourged by hair-trigger mayhem.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 10, 2019
Their bulging eyes seemed to rebuke her stares, but what were the attentions of one girl, disturbing their rest, compared to how the world had scourged them since the day they were brought into it?
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
“The wildfires scourging Los Angeles these last few weeks have been a devastating humanitarian and natural disaster,” Sharpton said in a prepared statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 1, 2025
In 1869, the British critic Matthew Arnold observed that Protestant Americans had internalized Hebraism’s scourging demands for “conduct and obedience” and “strictness of conscience”:
From Salon ● Mar. 31, 2024
Tygart, who has never been especially lenient, has begun to protest vehemently against WADA’s public scourging of athletes as drug cheats over a single low-level test.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 16, 2021
That has left innovation, with the exception of a few one-person shows, largely to small theaters in rural areas where the pandemic has been less scourging.
From New York Times ● Oct. 14, 2020
They involved doing penance for a sin not yet committed, intense and fervent penance accompanied by scourging and flagellation, so as to build up, as it were, a store of credit.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
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.
