scourge

Etymology 1

Inherited from Middle English scourge, from Anglo-Norman scorge, escorge, escourge, escurge, from Anglo-Norman escorger (“to whip”), from Vulgar Latin *excorrigiō, from Latin ex- (“thoroughly”) + corrigia (“thong, whip”).

noun

1. A source of persistent trouble such as pestilence that causes pain and suffering or widespread destruction.
   Graffiti is the scourge of building owners everywhere.
2. A means to inflict such pain or destruction.
   America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 ([…]): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short. 2013-06-01, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 11
   1. A whip, often of leather and often multi-tailed.
      He flogged him with a scourge.
      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

Etymology 2

Inherited from Middle English scourgen, from the noun (see above).

verb

1. To strike with a scourge; to flog.
   If they vote, they do not send men to Congress on errands of humanity; but while their brothers and sisters are being scourged and hung for loving liberty, while—I might here insert all that slavery implies and is,—it is the mismanagement of wood and iron and stone and gold which concerns them. 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts