scourge

Meaning

Noun

1. A whip, often made of leather and having multiple tails; a lash.
2. A person or thing regarded as an agent of divine punishment.
3. A source of persistent (and often widespread) pain and suffering or trouble, such as a cruel ruler, disease, pestilence, or war.

Verb

1. To strike (a person, an animal, etc.) with a scourge (noun sense 1) or whip; to flog, to whip.
2. To drive, or force (a person, an animal, etc.) to move, with or as if with a scourge or whip.
3. To punish (a person, an animal, etc.); to chastise.
4. To cause (someone or something) persistent (and often widespread) pain and suffering or trouble; to afflict, to torment.
5. Of a crop or a farmer: to deplete the fertility of (land or soil).

Synonyms

whip

lash

flog

plague

flagellate

beat

chastise

punish

thrash

curse

flagellum

threat

ravage

spank

switch

terror

desolate

devastate

lay waste to

calamity

waste

trounce

bane

stick

discipline

horsewhip

nemesis

harass

cane

epidemic

strap

knout

torment

penalize

flail

laceration

lambast

lambaste

lather

lesion

lick

maim

mangle

manhandle

minus

mutilate

nuisance

obsess

paddle

penalise

pest

pester

rack

sentence

shellac

smack

smite

sore

spanking

tormentor

torture

visitation

whipping

whop

worry

wound

pesterer

prey on

tawse

scourse

affect

lay waste

afflict

affliction

agonize

bait

bedevil

belabour

belting

birch

buff

bully

canker

castigate

cat

😺

chasten

churn

condemn

cord

correct

cowhide

disaster

drub

excruciate

ferule

flay

goad

harrow

harry

hit

horror

horse-whip

infest

infliction

injury

knock about

Pronounced as (IPA)

/skɜːd͡ʒ/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: scourge

Cognate with French: escourgée

Cognate with Italian: scuriada

Inherited from Middle English: scourgen

In summary

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