Noun

(en noun)

Any adversity; a trying period or event.

* 1535 , , Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation , ch. 6:

For the blessed apostle himself in his sore tribulation', praying thrice unto God to take it away from him, was answered again by God (in a manner) that he was but a fool in asking that request, but that the help of God's grace in that '''tribulation''' to strengthen him was far better for him than to take that ' tribulation from him.

* 1847 , , Omoo , ch. 11:

Baltimore's tribulations were indeed sore; there was no peace for him day nor night.

* 1944 June 27, , Speech in Chicago, Illinois to the 23rd Republican National Convention:

It is youth who must inherit the tribulation , the sorrow and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.

* 2009 Sept. 24, , " Kristina'': A New Musical from the ABBA Guys," ''New York Times (retrieved 12 March 2014):

Essentially stoic, passive characters, Kristina and the others triumph by surviving — by outliving their plagues and tribulations .

Noun

(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

What scourge for perjury / Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?

* {{quote-magazine, title=Towards the end of poverty

, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=11, magazine=(The Economist) 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.}}

A whip, often of leather.

* Chapman

Up to coach then goes / The observed maid, takes both the scourge and reins.