scourge

1. 1.

   punish severely; excoriate

   Broaderpunish
2. 2.

   whip

   “The religious fanatics flagellated themselves”

   Synonymsflagellate

   Broaderflog
3. 3.

   cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly

   “The enemy lay waste to the countryside after the invasion”

   Synonymslay waste towastedevastatedesolateravage

   Broaderdestroy

   Narrowerruin

Other forms of scourge

plural

scourges·

past tense

scourged·

present participle

scourging·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about scourge

What does scourge mean?

scourge means "a whip used to inflict punishment (often used for pedantic humor)". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in scourge?

scourge has 1 syllable: scourge. In IPA it is /ˈskɝdʒ/.

What is another word for scourge?

Close synonyms include flagellum, bane, curse, nemesis, terror. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is scourge a common word?

scourge is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.