Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Plural form of
offscouring .
Etymologies
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Examples
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The "offscourings" of London, which the companies carried rather more to the southward than the northward with us, were hardly scoured off in
London Films William Dean Howells 1878
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As a '49er, Christman said, he was surrounded "by the offscourings and scum of society" and by "more gamblers, more drunkards, more ugly, bad women, and larger lumps of gold" than "any other place of similar dimensions within Uncle Sam's dominions."
Five Best: Susan J. Matt Susan J. Matt 2012
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Simultaneously, as the labor scholar Samuel Yellen has described, they fueled anti-immigrant sentiment by branding these same individuals--who were responsible for the bulk of their corporate profits--a savage "rabble . . . who are the offscourings of Europe."
Mark Cassello: Labor and Capital in the 21st Century: Legacy of the Haymarket Affair Mark Cassello 2011
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Simultaneously, as the labor scholar Samuel Yellen has described, they fueled anti-immigrant sentiment by branding these same individuals--who were responsible for the bulk of their corporate profits--a savage "rabble . . . who are the offscourings of Europe."
Mark Cassello: Labor and Capital in the 21st Century: Legacy of the Haymarket Affair Mark Cassello 2011
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Simultaneously, as the labor scholar Samuel Yellen has described, they fueled anti-immigrant sentiment by branding these same individuals--who were responsible for the bulk of their corporate profits--a savage "rabble . . . who are the offscourings of Europe."
Mark Cassello: Labor and Capital in the 21st Century: Legacy of the Haymarket Affair Mark Cassello 2011
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Rorlund: Oh, I would rather not speak of such offscourings of humanity as that.
Pillars of Society 2008
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Rorlund: Oh, I would rather not speak of such offscourings of humanity as that.
Pillars of Society 2008
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They are offscourings of Europe who have sought these shores to abuse the hospitality and defy the authority of the country.
The History of May Day Abhay N 2007
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The only people in the world to whom it denies these rights are not its quondam slaves, not pagans, not runaway convicts, not the offscourings of any nation however degraded, but the original owners of the country.
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880. Various
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The place was thronged with the offscourings of Paris, and Hervagault found himself in congenial quarters.
Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton Anonymous
chained_bear commented on the word offscourings
The views presented in this article are execrable, but I wanted to add this word.
"While it is true that a goodly number of foreigners make respectable citizens, a greater number are criminals, anarchists, degenerates and every other conceivable element of the offscourings of Europe...."
—“Negroes and Immigrants,�? Cleveland Journal (Ohio), January 9, 1904.
EDIT: I cut the more horrific portions.
August 1, 2008