# scourge

> English word · Noun · IPA /skɜːd͡ʒ/ · frequency rank #22,807

## Definitions
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.

## Etymology
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

## Easily confused with
- **surge** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/scourge-vs-surge)
- **source** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/scourge-vs-source)
- **splurge** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/scourge-vs-splurge)
- **score** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/score-vs-scourge)
- **scour** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/scour-vs-scourge)
- **scoured** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/scoured-vs-scourge)

## Common misspellings (10)
`csourge`, `sccourge`, `scoruge`, `scougre`, `scoureg`, `scourgge`, `scourrge`, `scuorge`, `socurge`, `sscourge`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/scourge