Link Centre Dictionary

scour

UK/ˈskaʊə/ US/ˈskaʊɚ/ uncommon obsolete
verb (4) noun (1)

verb

1.

examine minutely

  • “The police scoured the country for the fugitive”
2.

clean with hard rubbing

  • “She scrubbed his back”
Synonyms
3.

rub hard or scrub

  • “scour the counter tops”
Synonyms
4.

rinse, clean, or empty with a liquid

  • “flush the wound with antibiotics”
  • “purge the old gas tank”
Synonyms

noun

1.

Origin

From Middle English scǒuren (“to polish, scour; to clean; to beat, whip”), from Middle Dutch scuren, schuren (“to clean; to polish”) or Middle Low German schǖren, of uncertain origin but probably from Old French escurer, from Medieval Latin scūrō, escūrō, excūrō (“to clean off”), from ex- (“thoroughly”) + cūrō (“to arrange, see to, take care of”), from cūra (“care, concern”) (from Proto-Indo-European *kʷeys- (“to heed”)) + -ō. The word is cognate with Danish skure, Middle High German schüren, schiuren (modern German scheuern (“to scour, scrub; to chafe”)), Norwegian skura (“to scrub”), Swedish skura, Catalan escurar.

Phrases

  • black scour
  • ice scour
  • scour down
  • scour out
  • scour up
  • scouring pad
  • scouring powder
  • scouring rush
  • toe scour
  • white scour

Related words

Word family

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.