Scourge vs Flail - What's the difference?
scourge | flail |
(uncountable) A source of persistent trouble such as pestilence that causes pain and suffering or widespread destruction.
A means to inflict such pain or destruction.
* Shakespeare
* {{quote-magazine, title=Towards the end of poverty
, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=11, magazine=(The Economist)
A whip, often of leather.
* Chapman
To strike with a scourge , to flog.
A tool used for threshing, consisting of a long handle with a shorter stick attached with a short piece of chain, thong or similar material.
A weapon which has the (usually spherical) striking part attached to the handle with a flexible joint such as a chain.
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end; * 1816 — *: Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail * 1842 — *: On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth! * 1879 — , ch V *: If the farmer must use the spade because he has not capital enough for a plough, the sickle instead of the reaping machine, the flail instead of the thresher... To beat using a flail or similar implement.
To wave or swing vigorously
*
* 1937 , ,
To thresh.
To move like a flail.
As nouns the difference between scourge and flail
is that scourge is (uncountable) a source of persistent trouble such as pestilence that causes pain and suffering or widespread destruction while flail is a tool used for threshing, consisting of a long handle with a shorter stick attached with a short piece of chain, thong or similar material.As verbs the difference between scourge and flail
is that scourge is to strike with a scourge , to flog while flail is to beat using a flail or similar implement.scourge
English
Noun
- What scourge for perjury / Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?
citation, passage=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.}}
- Up to coach then goes / The observed maid, takes both the scourge and reins.
Verb
See also
* (pedia)flail
English
Noun
(en noun)Quotations
* 1631 — *: When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end; * 1816 — *: Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail * 1842 — *: On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth! * 1879 — , ch V *: If the farmer must use the spade because he has not capital enough for a plough, the sickle instead of the reaping machine, the flail instead of the thresher...
Coordinate terms
*(weapon) nunchakuVerb
(en verb)- He stopped in his tracks – then, flailing his arms wildly in the air, began to stagger backwards.
- He was flailing wildly, but didn't land a blow.