scourge

Cunningham proclaims herself as a warrior for “common sense” by fighting off a scourge that no one can see.

From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026

"The size of the gap between the educational outcomes of children from more and less advantaged backgrounds is a scourge on our society," Julie McCulloch, chief executive of the EPI said.

From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026

One country has managed to hold firm against this scourge.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026

Speaking at a crisis meeting, France's Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu warned of "a tragic scourge of drownings", saying 40 mostly young people had drowned since June 18.

From Barron's ● Jun. 23, 2026

He began by making readers face the terrible illness: “About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in among us.”

From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy

Yet these scourges aren’t unique to Mexico, the author points out—they exist around the world, even in “the countries that pride themselves on being the democracies par excellence.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025

A better social safety net to end this and other scourges of poverty is in order.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2024

Though we might assume Elmo is unencumbered by society’s scourges in the same way we are, it’s worth reminding ourselves that he’s partly assuming some of that baggage for us.

From Salon ● Feb. 3, 2024

Malaria kills mostly babies and infants, and has been one of the biggest scourges on humanity.

From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2023

Searching for precedents, the foresters could remember other scourges of spider mites, though less dramatic than this one.

From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson

He then revealed his "scourged back" as proof.

From BBC ● Dec. 8, 2022

Pope Francis, in 2013, said the shroud is an “icon of a man scourged and crucified.”

From Washington Times ● Feb. 24, 2022

The subject, from St. John’s Gospel, shows Pontius Pilate presenting the scourged and mocked Christ to the crowd.

From New York Times ● Apr. 8, 2021

Diane Offutt, eyes squeezed shut, nodded amen, as did the girlfriend, while Kovler portrayed their man as industrious and responsible, not someone fitting the profile of a shooter in a metropolis scourged by hair-trigger mayhem.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 10, 2019

Their bulging eyes seemed to rebuke her stares, but what were the attentions of one girl, disturbing their rest, compared to how the world had scourged them since the day they were brought into it?

From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead

In 1869, the British critic Matthew Arnold observed that Protestant Americans had internalized Hebraism’s scourging demands for “conduct and obedience” and “strictness of conscience”:

From Salon ● Mar. 31, 2024

When Fo won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1997, the Nobel Committee praised him for “emulating the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2022

Of the scourging pressure of his need to understand.

From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2019

Johnson gave a jovial answer about politicians who lie, saying “they should be made to go on their knees through the chamber of the House of Commons scourging themselves with copies of their offending documents”.

From The Guardian ● Dec. 6, 2019

He held the scourging tail in one claw, while gripped in the other was his war standard, topped by the ferret skull with the addition of the tattered tapestry square depicting Martin the Warrior.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques