the.com/scourge

means A person or thing that causes great suffering or persistent torment, often on a large scale (a plague, a tyrant, an unrelenting problem).

from From Old French 'escorge/escorgier' (to whip), tracing back to Latin 'excoriare' — to strip the hide off, from 'corium,' skin or hide (the same root that gives us 'corium' and relatives of 'cuirass'). So the word's bones are literal: it meant a physical whip used for flogging, long before it widened into anything — disease, tyrant, deadline — that lashes you again and again.