How to Use scourge in a Sentence

scourge

1 of 2 noun
  • The disease continues to be a scourge in the developing world.
  • Then there’s the scourge known as porch pirates.
    — Inga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Jan. 2026
  • Airbnb is all geared up to fight the scourge of wild summer parties.
    — Michael Goldstein, Forbes.com, 30 June 2026
  • Yet his body count can’t even come close to the Oxycontin scourge.
    — Chris Vognar, Rolling Stone, 10 Aug. 2023
  • There may be a few folks who can salvage this soulless scourge of scarcity.
    — David John Chávez, Mercury News, 18 June 2026
  • Is there any hope that one person or more can make a difference in this scourge?
    — Dave Lieber, Dallas Morning News, 18 Mar. 2026
  • That could happen if more voters become aware of the scourge of child labor.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 24 July 2023
  • This country must attack the scourge of mass shootings on every front.
    — The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune, 27 Aug. 2025
  • The scourge would spread fast, but the progression of illness would be slow and subtle.
    — Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 1 Feb. 2024
  • What does victory over this fentanyl scourge and saving lives look like in the next year or two?
    — Nbc Universal, NBC News, 2 July 2023
  • Here at home, gun violence continues as a civic scourge.
    — Otis Moss Iii, Chicago Tribune, 1 Mar. 2026
  • Simple, reliable at-home tests might be one of our best weapons to fight the growing scourge.
    — Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 16 June 2023
  • How can the town work through its grief and confront a national scourge of gun violence?
    — Patrik Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor, 7 June 2023
  • Bectu and Pact have called it a scourge and pledged to try and eliminate the problem.
    — The Deadline Team, Deadline, 4 Sep. 2025
  • Their work, of course, will aim to prevent more loss of life as the US gun violence scourge drags on.
    — Ryan Young, CNN, 31 Mar. 2023
  • But allowing inflation to become a long-term scourge is a bigger threat.
    — Larry Edelman, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Nov. 2022
  • One airline, though, is attempting to lessen the impact of that scourge on its passengers.
    — Tori Latham, Robb Report, 20 June 2023
  • Retta’s old-school commitments are no match for the new scourge of RST.
    — Noah Berlatsky, Los Angeles Times, 9 Aug. 2023
  • How the scourge of originalism is taking over the Supreme Court.
    — Elvia Limón, Los Angeles Times, 7 Sep. 2022
  • No one knows who Patient Zero for this scourge is, but everybody knows its name.
    — Joseph Dycus, Mercury News, 8 Apr. 2026
  • The superstar has spoken out against this scourge once again, but this time, she’s done so in an unlikely manner.
    — Hugh McIntyre, Forbes, 23 Feb. 2024
  • Here's why one writer thinks its time to end the scourge of scared kids forced to sit on Santa's lap for a photo opp—for good.
    — Sara Rowe Mount, Parents, 28 Nov. 2025
  • Our cash bail system, where wealth determines freedom, is a scourge on the moral fabric of this country and this state.
    — Rebecca Wallace, Denver Post, 5 Sep. 2025
  • At every step, the actions have stirred debate over whether states are doing the right things to address the scourge of school shootings.
    — Andrew Demillo, Chron, 6 Sep. 2022
  • The deadly scourge of fentanyl argues for a response different than the status quo.
    — Globe Columnist, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Jan. 2023
  • But even as the state’s landmark law took effect in 2021, the scourge of fentanyl was taking hold.
    — Mike Baker, New York Times, 2 Mar. 2024
  • And that will have far more impact than the scourge of the federal government and its agents in our streets and neighborhoods.
    — David Ostendorf, Time, 29 Jan. 2026
  • But that feeling quickly went away as doctors had to deal with the scourge itself, and with a public-health failure of actions.
    — Benjamin Mazer, The Atlantic, 17 Aug. 2022
  • First each member, in turn, would prostrate himself while the others, marching in a circle, stepped over him and struck him with their scourges.
    — Michael Robbins, Harpers Magazine, 20 Aug. 2025
  • But nothing moves—nothing except the winds that start rising, vengeful gusts that pummel and lash like a scourge out of scripture.
    — Andrew Kay, WIRED, 17 Jan. 2023

scourge

2 of 2 verb
  • The prisoner was scourged with a whip.
  • These scourged the poor harder than anyone else.
    — Edward Lotterman, Twin Cities, 31 Aug. 2025
  • An expensive dollar also scourges industries that compete with imports.
    — Edward Lotterman, Twin Cities, 31 May 2026
  • Prior to Christ's crucifixion, Roman soldiers ordered him to be scourged.
    — Anthony Leonardi, Washington Examiner, 23 Mar. 2020
  • There also will be a scourging pillar, a Roman lance, and a life-size corpus on the cross that portrays a dramatic scene, as well as various other items of that time.
    — Joanne Berger Dumound/special To Cleveland.com., cleveland.com, 19 Feb. 2018
  • Any progressive politician who wants to gain power has to find common interests with some of them, without waiting for the day of reckoning first to scourge white Americans of their original sin.
    — Rosa Inocencio Smith, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 2017
  • The single-use plastic straw — colorful, functional and handed out in bunches — has suddenly shifted from consumer staple to scourge, projected by some critics to foul ecosystems for an eon.
    — Robert Channick, chicagotribune.com, 11 June 2018
  • Yet what’s most original in the film is Mercier’s scathing and self-scourging performance (and there’s no gainsaying the importance of Yoav’s outfit, a collarless saffron-yellow coat).
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 26 Sep. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'scourge.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: