From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishscourgescourge1 /skɜːdʒ $ skɜːrdʒ/ noun [countable] 1 HARM/BE BAD FORsomething that causes a lot of harm or sufferingscourge of the scourge of unemployment the scourge of war2 SCCPUNISHa whip used to punish people in the past
Examples from the Corpus
scourge• Sustained international terror has been a scourge on civilized society for the past quarter-century.• The weather was like a scourge, the land could kill you.• Thérèse did not possess a hair shirt, or a belt spiked with rusty nails, or a scourge.• Some of my best friends have been taken by that scourge.• I just repeated the story about my speech on the scourge of gangsterism.• The scourge had abated, but psychological damage had been done, which was not so readily repaired.• The harpies from Paris running the road houses which must inevitably multiply will be a worse scourge than the mosquitoes.scourge of• Gun violence is the scourge of my daughter's generation.scourgescourge2 verb [transitive] 1 HARM/BE BAD FORto cause a lot of harm or suffering to a place or group of people2 PUNISHto hit someone with a whip as punishment in the past→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
scourge• Enraged, he had her broken on a wheel, scourged and beheaded, at which milk flowed from her veins.• In another age Preston would have been out there with the self-flagellants, scourging away for all he was worth.• It flicked behind each dimpled knee; and then scourged her at intervals from her pretty ankles to her shoulder blades.Origin scourge1 (1100-1200) Anglo-French escorge, from Old French escorgier “to whip”, from Latin corrigia “long thin piece of leather” 