SCOURGE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does scourge mean? 

• SCOURGE (noun)
  The noun SCOURGE has 3 senses:

1. a whip used to inflict punishment (often used for pedantic humor)

2. something causing misery or death

3. a person who inspires fear or dread

  Familiarity information: SCOURGE used as a noun is uncommon.

• SCOURGE (verb)
  The verb SCOURGE has 3 senses:

1. punish severely; excoriate

2. whip

3. cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly

  Familiarity information: SCOURGE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SCOURGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A whip used to inflict punishment (often used for pedantic humor)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

flagellum; scourge

Hypernyms ("scourge" is a kind of...):

whip (an instrument with a handle and a flexible lash that is used for whipping)

Derivation:

scourge (whip)

scourge (punish severely; excoriate)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Something causing misery or death

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

bane; curse; nemesis; scourge

Context example:

the bane of my life

Hypernyms ("scourge" is a kind of...):

affliction (a cause of great suffering and distress)

Derivation:

scourge (cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A person who inspires fear or dread

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

scourge; terror; threat

Context example:

he was the terror of the neighborhood

Hypernyms ("scourge" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

• SCOURGE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they scourge    ... he / she / it scourges   
Past simple: scourged   
Past participle: scourged   
-ing form: scourging   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Punish severely; excoriate

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "scourge" is one way to...):

penalise; penalize; punish (impose a penalty on; inflict punishment on)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

scourge (a whip used to inflict punishment (often used for pedantic humor))

scourger (a torturer who flogs or scourges (especially an official whose duty is to whip offenders))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Whip

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

flagellate; scourge

Context example:

The religious fanatics flagellated themselves

Hypernyms (to "scourge" is one way to...):

flog; lash; lather; slash; strap; trounce; welt; whip (beat severely with a whip or rod)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

scourge (a whip used to inflict punishment (often used for pedantic humor))

scourger (a torturer who flogs or scourges (especially an official whose duty is to whip offenders))

Sense 3

Meaning:

Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

desolate; devastate; lay waste to; ravage; scourge; waste

Context example:

The enemy lay waste to the countryside after the invasion

Hypernyms (to "scourge" is one way to...):

destroy; ruin (destroy completely; damage irreparably)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "scourge"):

ruin (reduce to ruins)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

scourge (something causing misery or death)

 Context examples 

How long then will it be ere I can scourge it forth?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by degrees various facts came out which excited public indignation in a high degree.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

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.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

And thus he continued on, while my colour came and went several times, with indignation, to hear our noble country, the mistress of arts and arms, the scourge of France, the arbitress of Europe, the seat of virtue, piety, honour, and truth, the pride and envy of the world, so contemptuously treated.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But there is a certain villainous and bloodthirsty Norman pirate hight Tete-noire, who, with a Genoan called Tito Caracci, commonly known as Spade-beard, hath been a mighty scourge upon these coasts.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was the stile before me—the very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I well knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of them.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Then at the end of the verse the scourge changed hands and the chanting began anew.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Drag him forth, and let the foresters and the porters scourge him from the precincts!

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Most scared of all was he to find that the creature had come nigh to harm the Lord and Lady of the castle, who had power to place him in the stretch-neck or to have the skin scourged from his shoulders.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Even as the three wayfarers stared, however, there was a sudden change, for the smaller man, having finished his song, loosened his own gown and handed the scourge to the other, who took up the stave once more and lashed his companion with all the strength of his bare and sinewy arm.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)