scourge
n. countablen. something that causes a lot of trouble, pain, or suffering to many people. You often hear it used to describe things like war, disease, or poverty.
n. a person or thing that causes great trouble or suffering. Often used metaphorically to describe widespread social or biological afflictions.
Vaccines helped the world get rid of the scourge of smallpox.
The government is struggling to find a long-term solution to the scourge of drug addiction in the city.
Historians often describe the Black Death as a devastating scourge that fundamentally altered the economic and social structures of medieval Europe.
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
From Middle English scourgen (“to whip, scourge; to afflict; to punish”), and then either: * from scourge (noun) + -en (suffix forming infinitives of verbs); or * from Anglo-Norman escorger, and Old French escorgier (“to whip, to scourge”), which are either: ** from Anglo-Norman scorge, escorge (noun), etc., or Old French scurge, escourge (noun), etc. + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs); or * from Vulgar Latin excorrigiō, from Latin ex- (intensifying prefix) + corrigia (“a whip”); or ** directly from Late Latin excoriāre. See further at etymology 1.
Frequently appears in the phrase 'the scourge of', followed by a noun representing a social ill or disease.