How to use scouring in a sentence

18 example sentences · noun

Scouring means the act of cleaning a surface by rubbing it with a brush, soap and water. Example: “If a lamb is scouring, do not delay treatment.”

Examples of scouring by meaning

nounDiarrhea. (Now used only of livestock, though also sometimes used of humans into the 1600s.).

Flux, bloody flux and scouring feature from the first, but were overtaken in the 1650s by 'plague in the guts', soon renamed 'griping in the guts'.2011, V. Berridge, M. Gorsky, Environment, Health and History, Springer, →ISBN, page 37

nounErosion by water, especially in watercourses.

It was also found that scouring had occurred in the bed of the mill lade, which passes between the first and second piers.1950 January, “Re-Opening of the Eyemouth Branch”, in Railway Magazine, page 11

More sentences with scouring

If a lamb is scouring, do not delay treatment.From the entry scour
Ferns, lycopods, and scouring rushes are all pteridophytes.From the entry pteridophyte
Visibly panicked, both split up and began scouring the parking lot and the building’s perimeter.2026 July 25, Nicholas Muhoro, “The Last Call of Jo-Anne Pedersen, the Girl Who Vanished From a Payphone”, in Skip Boring, archived from…. From the entry scour
This party headed towards the tiers and lakes, scouring the country while veering towards Bothwell.2017, Nick Brodie, The Vandemonian War, Hardie Grant Books, page 114. From the entry tier
It becomes surface water runoff through atmospheric scouring associated with rainfall and fogfall.1998, Keith B. Hoddinott, Superfund Risk Assessment in Soil Contamination Studies: Third Volume, →ISBN. From the entry fogfall
For the thorns and briers need a good scouring, confessing, in words, allegiance to a nobler, nemophilous wolf.2014, Neil Baker, Occultus Liber, page 36. From the entry nemophilous
The gale scouring the exposed surface of the mountain had swept the snow surface into a wind-board crust.1925, Ernest Hemingway, Cross-Country Snow. From the entry wind-board
Drew” (thankfully canceled) or that show where people have bizarre addictions like eating chalk or scouring powder, have done almost nothing to educate Americans.2013 July 19, Kristen Johnston, “Turning Addiction Into a Sideshow”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 20 Apr 2019. From the entry sideshow
It’s an aesthetic that particularly appeals to the art dealers and gallerists who were scouring the Milan fringe shows for new talent last week.2007 April 26, “A Little Reality, a Lot of Fantasy”, in New York Times. From the entry gallerist
Franklin had a far worse case of moviemania than I — a childhood spent scouring video stores and sitting in art houses.2004, Martha Sherrill, My Last Movie Star, Random House, →ISBN, page 65. From the entry moviemania
Usually a balling operation will function very well with 2.0 feet of head in the upstream manhole to create a scouring velocity around the ball.2003, Operation and Maintenance of Wastewater Collection Systems. From the entry balling
A visitor mentioned that if horses had to be placed on a chaffed straw diet, a small quantity of pollard would prevent scouring.1914, The Journal of the Department of Agriculture of South Australia, page 688. From the entry chaffed
A resaca is an old river channel that was probably cut off by an overflow scouring out a new and more direct course.[1911 January 12, L. L. Hidinger, The Drainage Situation in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas, Circular 103, Washington, DC: U.S. Dept.…. From the entry resaca
However, observation of the hopper area and the outlet field can usually detect the presence of heavy dust reentrainment either by hopper sweepage or by scouring of the plates.2014, Arthur C. Stern, Air Pollution V4: Engineering control of Air Pollution, →ISBN, page 254. From the entry sweepage
Once in a while, I peered in the mirror looking at the window behind me, somehow expecting to see a patrol scouring the neighbourhood, looking for the escapée.1996, Joseph Peretz, The Endless Wait: A Memoir, Lugus Publications, →ISBN, page 113. From the entry escapée
During the last ice-age, massive stones were carried for miles by the scouring glaciers, only to be left, like passengers at the end of the line, when the glaciers retreated.2015 May 4, Dominick Tyler, “10 UK landscape features that you’ve probably never heard of”, in The Guardian. From the entry erratic

Meaning of scouring

noun The act of cleaning a surface by rubbing it with a brush, soap and water.
noun Diarrhea. (Now used only of livestock, though also sometimes used of humans into the 1600s.).
noun Erosion by water, especially in watercourses.

Full definition of scouring

Questions about scouring in a sentence

How do you use scouring in a sentence?: Scouring is used as a noun. For example: “If a lamb is scouring, do not delay treatment.”
What is a short sentence with scouring?: “Ferns, lycopods, and scouring rushes are all pteridophytes.”
What does scouring mean?: Scouring means the act of cleaning a surface by rubbing it with a brush, soap and water.

Adapted from Wiktionary: scouring (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 scouring in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/scouring. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.