Meaning of Scourge | Babel Free

Definitions

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

Equivalents

Examples

“He flogged him with a scourge.”

“Yf they breake myne ordinaunces, and kepe not my commaundementes. I vil vyſet their offences with the rodde, and their ſynnes with ſcourges.”

“My father layd vpon you a heauie yoke, vvhich I vvil make heauier: my father bette you vvith ſcourges, but I vvil beate you vvith ſcorpions.”

“Up to coach then goes / Th' observed Maid, takes both the scourge and reins, / And to her side her handmaid straight attains.”

“[H]eaven-born truth, / And moderation fair, vvere the red marks / Of ſuperſtition's ſcourge: […]”

“Mortify / Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; / Smite, shrink not, spare not.”

“Another strange manifestation of collective mental abnormality, though not directly connected with sorcery, was the Brotherhood of Flagellants. […] These men lashed themselves and each other unmercifully with knotted leather scourges until the blood ran, two or three times daily.”

“And therfore the faithfull had neede of inuincible conſtancie and incredible pacience, that they may know them to be gods squorges, and the inſtrumentes of his wrath, […]”

“Againe not long after this euen ſhortly after the death of Alaricus came that Flagellum Dei that ſcourge of God into Italy, Attila King of the Hunnes, and ſpoyled the country vvith maruailous hoſtility in the time of the Emperour Martian.”

“[I]f Attila equalled the hoſtile ravages of Tamerlane, either the Tartar or the Hun might deſerve the epithet of the Scourge of God.”

“[H]e, / As he is wont, came to upbraid and curse, / Mocking our poverty, and telling us / Such was God's scourge for disobedient sons.”

“Yet true destructive power is power just the same as constructive. Even Attila, the Scourge of God, who helped to scourge the Roman world out of existence, was great with power. He was the scourge of God; not the scourge of the League of Nations, hired and paid in cash.”

“Graffiti is the scourge of building owners everywhere.”

“Thou ominous and fearefull Ovvle of death, / Our Nations terror, and their bloody ſcourge, / The period of thy Tyranny approacheth, / On vs thou canſt not enter but by death: […]”

“[W]hat ſcourge for periury, / Can this darke monarchy afford falſe Clarence, […]”

“Intemperance is the plague of ſenſualitie; and temperance is not her ſcourge, but rather her ſeaſoning.”

“You haue bin a ſcourge to her enemies, you haue bin a Rod to her Friends, you haue not indeede loued the Common people.”

“Cimon […] vvhoſe genius, riſing ſtrong, / Shook off the load of young debauch; abroad / The ſcourge of Perſian pride, at home the friend / Of every vvorth and every ſplendid art; […]”

“On you it rests, whether I quit for ever the neighbourhood of man, and lead a harmless life, or become the scourge of your fellow-creatures, and the author of your own speedy ruin.”

“[…] I speak it not / As loving parliaments, which, as they have been / In the right hand of bold bad mighty kings / The scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate.”

“[H]e had become a monster of cruelty, having in him the same temper as of old made the tyrants of Padova and Verona and Brescia the scourges of their generation.”

“America's poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty's scourge is fiercest below $1.25[…]: people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

CEFR level