offscouring

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

From off- +‎ scouring.

Noun

[edit]

offscouring (plural offscourings)

  1. Refuse removed from something by scouring.
  2. (figuratively) An outcast, a pariah.
    • 1861, Theodore Winthrop, Washington as a Camp, The Following Is the Oath
      By repeating a form of words after a gentleman in a glazed cap and black raiment, we had suffered change into base assassins, the offscouring of society, starving for want of employment, and willing to “imbrue our coarse fists in fraternal blood” for the sum of eleven dollars a month, besides hard-tack, salt junk, and the hope of a Confederate States bond apiece for bounty, or free loot in the treasuries of Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas, after the war.

Translations

[edit]