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Etymology and origin of the English word scour

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈskaʊə/[1]
  • US: /ˈskaʊɚ/, /skaʊɹ/[1]

scour1 clean by rubbing

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1230 Ancrene Riwle
Borrowed from
Middle Dutch schūren via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin cūra

Etymology

The word for cleaning by rubbing is inherited from Middle English scouren, also scuren,[2][3] probably borrowed from Middle Dutch schūren or Middle Low German schūren,[4][2][5][6] from Old French escurer (“to clean, scour”),[4][7][8][9] from Late Latin excūrō (“to clean off”),[3][8][10] in Medieval Latin scūrō,[6][7] formed from Latin ex- (“out”) and cūrō (“to take care of; in Medieval Latin, to clean”),[4][11][12] from cūra (“care”), the source of cure.[12][11] The OED doubts a direct borrowing from the French verb, because the word would then have the vowel of pure in modern English, and suggests that Flemish workmen brought it in as a technical term;[4][7][3] Barnhart and Etymonline allow the French word as a second source,[3][7] and Weekley derives the word from French alone.[13] The Dutch and Low German verb, the OED says, is itself probably from French,[4] and it is the source of German scheuern and Swedish skura.[4] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1212.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To scour or polish metal: about 1230, in the Ancrene Riwle, of a file that rusts the more þet me hit scureð hearde.[2] Barnhart dates this use to probably before 1200,[3] and Etymonline dates the word to about 1200.[7] The OED's first quotation is a figurative use, before 1300 in the Cursor Mundi, and its first literal one is from the Romaunt of the Rose, perhaps before 1366.[4]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English Dictionary shows the verb already spread from metal and pots to the soul, cleansed of sin, to clothing, to entrails and to clearing a ditch or a way, and then to ridding a place of an enemy.[2] Hoad dates that last sense to the 13th century,[6] and the Shorter Oxford and Merriam-Webster Unabridged keep it, the latter as archaic.[5][8] Washing cloth or wool is recorded from 1467,[4] a use the English Dialect Dictionary still reports from Yorkshire,[14] and vigorous washing of the hands or face from 1589.[4][7] In slang from about 1450 to 1699 one scoured a pair of fetters or the stocks by wearing them or sitting in them.[4][15][5] Johnson (1755) gave as the first sense rubbing hard with something rough to clean the surface.[16] The noun came from the verb, first in 1619 for an apparatus for washing gold-bearing soil,[4][3] and then for a river shallow scoured by the stream (1681 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged, 1689 in the OED),[3][8][4] the clearing action of a current (1729) and a diarrhoea of livestock (1764).[4] In the United States from 1871 a plough was said to scour when it passed through the soil without earth sticking to it, and figuratively to succeed.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1230 – to scour or polish, of a file, in the Ancrene Riwle.[2]
  • before 1300 – figurative, to cleanse or polish spiritually.[4][2]
  • 1412–20 – to clear out a channel or ditch, in Lydgate.[4]
  • c. 1450 – slang, to wear fetters or sit in the stocks (obsolete by 1699).[4][15]
  • 1467 – to remove grease or dirt from cloth or wool.[4]
  • before 1475 – to cleanse a wound or an animal's entrails.[4]
  • 1589 – to wash the hands, face or teeth vigorously.[4][7]
  • 1613 – to clean the inside of a gun.[4]
  • 1619 – noun, an apparatus for washing gold-bearing soil.[4][3]
  • 1729 – noun, the clearing action of a current.[4]
  • 1764 – noun, diarrhoea in livestock.[4]
  • 1871 – in the United States, of a plough, to pass cleanly through the soil.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To clean or polish by hard rubbing, especially with something rough or abrasive: He scoured the burnt skillet until it shone.[17][8][4]
  2. To remove by rubbing hard: She scoured the rust off the gate.[8][17]
  3. To clear out a channel or ditch, especially by the force of water.[17][4]
  4. To wash wool or cloth to remove grease and other impurities.[17][4]
  5. Of livestock, to have diarrhoea; to purge an animal.[17]
  6. To take the flesh from a hide by rubbing.[8]
  7. (archaic) To rid a place of enemies or other unwanted occupants.[8][5]

Noun

  1. The action of scouring, or of a current of water or a glacier clearing a surface.[17][8][4]
  2. A place scoured by running water; a gravel shallow in a river.[8][4][17]
  3. A diarrhoea of livestock, usually in the plural scours.[8][4]
  4. A substance used for scouring.[5][4]

Word family

  • scourer
  • unscoured
  • scouring pad
  • scouring rush

scour2 range over, search

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1297 Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle
Borrowed from
Old Norse skúr via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Old Norse skúr

Etymology

The word for ranging over a place is inherited from Middle English scouren, also scuren,[2][3] of uncertain origin.[7][4][6][18] The OED thinks the verb perhaps comes from the Middle English noun scour (“rush, attack”), recorded earlier than the verb,[4][2] which may be borrowed from Old Norse skúr (“storm, shower”), a relative of shower,[4][2][12] and it compares Norwegian skura (“to rush violently”).[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the American Heritage Dictionary likewise call the verb probably Scandinavian,[8][12] and Merriam-Webster compares Swedish skura (“to rush”).[8] Ayto and Etymonline propose skýra (“to rush in”),[11][7] and Etymonline and Klein add the influence of Old French escorre (“to run out”), from Latin excurrō (“to run out”), the source of excursion.[7][10] The OED rejects that source, since the French word would have given a different form in Middle English, and suggests that the military uses may partly be a back-formation from scourer.[4] Weekley saw the Norse noun combined with a shortened discover, used of reconnoitring,[13] and the Shorter Oxford compares skirr.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To move about hastily, especially to range in search of something or against a foe: 1297, in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle,[4] in a passage the Middle English Dictionary reads as moving rapidly.[2] Etymonline has about 1300,[7] and Barnhart before 1425, in Wycliffe's sermons, with the sense of crossing a place in search of enemies.[3]

Semantic evolution

From moving fast the verb went on to the transitive sense of passing rapidly over land or water, especially in quest of something or to drive off a foe, about 1380 in Wyclif, where priests must scure þe weie for the host that follows.[4][2] Lydgate has Pompey scouring the sea of pirates.[2] The OED and Etymonline both see the influence of the verb for cleaning on its sense development, for example in scour the countryside, to clear it of enemies.[4][7] The sense "to depart in haste, decamp", colloquial or slang from before 1592, died out by 1753.[4][15] In the late 17th century the verb belonged to the slang of street roisterers, who broke windows and beat the watch, and who were known as scourers:[4][5] Shadwell has it in 1673 and Dryden in 1681.[4] Searching in general led to the figurative sense of running over something with the eye or the mind, which the OED first finds in 1882, in Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper.[4][5] In Scots and in English dialects from Northumberland to Gloucestershire scour still meant to run off or scamper, also of a horse rushing sideways.[14] The noun, a rush or attack, which the Middle English Dictionary derives from Old Norse,[2] survives in Scots for a shower or a sudden gust.[14][5]

Timeline

  • 1297 – to move about hastily or range about.[4]
  • before 1300 – noun, a rapid movement, a rush, also in the phrase good scour, at a good pace.[4][7]
  • c. 1380 – to pass rapidly over a tract of land or water, especially in search of something.[4]
  • before 1400 – to move rapidly, run.[4]
  • before 1592 – to run away, decamp (obsolete by 1753).[4][15]
  • 1673 – slang, to roister about at night.[4]
  • 1808 – noun, the rush of a driving wind.[4]
  • 1882 – figurative, to run over in the mind or with the eye.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To search a place thoroughly and quickly: Volunteers scoured the valley for the lost hikers.[8][5][4]
  2. To look over something rapidly in search of something: He scoured the old catalogues for her name.[5][4]
  3. To hurry about in search of something, or to move rapidly: The dogs scoured over the moor.[8][5][4]
  4. (obsolete, before 1592–1753) To run away; to decamp.[4][5]
  5. (obsolete) To roister through the streets at night.[8][4][5]

Noun

  1. Rapid motion; a rush.[8][4]
  2. (obsolete, before 1400–1575) An attack or onset.[4][5]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  12. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  15. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press

Related etymologies

  • utterance · also from Middle Dutch
  • cramp · also from Middle Dutch
  • smelt · also from Middle Dutch
  • muddle · also from Middle Dutch
  • packsaddle · also from Middle Dutch
  • crag · also from Middle Dutch
  • margrave · also from Middle Dutch
  • Dutch · also from Middle Dutch
Cite this entry

“Scour.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/scour. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·