How to use scourge in a sentence

20 example sentences · noun, verb

Scourge means a whip, often made of leather and having multiple tails; a lash. Example: “He flogged him with a scourge.”

Examples of scourge by meaning

nounA whip, often made of leather and having multiple tails; a lash.

He flogged him with a scourge.

nounA person or thing regarded as an agent of divine punishment.

Even Attila, the Scourge of God, who helped to scourge the Roman world out of existence, was great with power.1925, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Blessed are the Powerful”, in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, 1st American...

nounA source of persistent (and often widespread) pain and suffering or trouble, such as a cruel ruler, disease...

Graffiti is the scourge of building owners everywhere.

More sentences with scourge

It’s one of the great scourges of the modern countryside – and it’s getting worse.2026 June, “Fly-tipping is destroying our countryside – here’s how to stop this disgraceful trend”, in BBC Countryfile Magazine. From the entry fly-tipper
Then the old scourge of dusk swooped down upon the warderless hoard.1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 40. From the entry shrieking
He wears a hairshirt winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 15: Circe]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 466. From the entry hairshirt
Even Saturday Night Live, the scourge of President Ford, could hardly lay a glove on the “Teflon president.”2013, Tevi Troy, What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted, →ISBN, page 144. From the entry lay a glove on
Okadas are the scourge of Nigeria's roads.2012, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria, page 34. From the entry okada
Yet virtually larger than life in the eyes of his contemporaries, the "scourge of the skies," the "ace of aces,"1968 March 4, Los Angeles Times. From the entry ace of aces
These men lashed themselves and each other unmercifully with knotted leather scourges until the blood ran, two or three times daily.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 99. From the entry knotted
He hated the Professor, who smelt the rogue in him, and scourged him continually with his sharp tongue.1910, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 5, in Queen Sheba's Ring. From the entry sharp tongue
Three Sikhs with three mules attempt to take it to them down the causeway scourged by the Chinese fire.1900, Archibald Clavering Gunter, Tangled Flags: A Novel, page 223. From the entry panthan
The New World screwworm fly is a tropical species, unable to survive Midwestern or Great Plains winters, so it was a seasonal scourge.2025 July 2, “U.S. plans to begin breeding billions of flies to fight a pest”, in NBC News, sourced from The Associated Press, archived…. From the entry New World screwworm
The fall armyworm, scourge of young pretassel corn, grows up to be a nondescript brown moth about the length of a long finger’s knuckle.2008 January 8, Guy Gugliotta, “To Raise Armyworms and Corn Borers, Study Insect Husbandry”, in New York Times. From the entry pretassel
These two examples of insect life are the scourge of the North Country, or any country in which they may be found.2000, William W. Forgey, Wilderness Medicine: Beyond First Aid, page 166. From the entry no-see-um
And now we have youthism — the hatred of young people, a new moral and social scourge, a kind of collective psychosis.1976, Atlas world press review: Volume 23. From the entry youthism
And we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism.2025 November 5, Zohran Mamdani, “The Full Transcript of Zohran Mamdani’s Victory Speech”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New…. From the entry antisemitism
The Sirens, gleeful scourge of mariners, beguiling bane and cruelhearted joy, whom no man could abandon once he'd heard them, were left, they say, through sly Ulysses' ploy.2014, Martial, Selected Epigrams, →ISBN, page 28. From the entry cruelhearted
CELLULITE — the dimpled, uneven skin that mars the backsides and thighs of women everywhere — is a scourge to bikini-wearers and a squelcher of lights-on romps in bed.2009 June 25, Catherine Saint Louis, “Treating Cellulite? It’s Still There”, in New York Times. From the entry squelcher
Their suffocating constriction and padded, ladderlike steps summoned up a thousand memories of gambades and trysts: coursing the white wolves, scourging the prisoners of the antechamber, reencountering Oringa.1987, Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sun, 1st US edition, New York: Tor Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 243–244. From the entry gambade

Meaning of scourge

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

Full definition of scourge

Questions about scourge in a sentence

How do you use scourge in a sentence?: Scourge is used as a noun and verb. For example: “He flogged him with a scourge.”
What is a short sentence with scourge?: “He flogged him with a scourge.”
What does scourge mean?: Scourge means a whip, often made of leather and having multiple tails; a lash.

Adapted from Wiktionary: scourge (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use scourge in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/scourge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.