different between diarrhea vs scouring

English

Alternative forms

• diarrhoea (British)
• diarrhœa (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle French diarrie (French diarrhée), from Late Latin diarrhoea, from Ancient Greek ???????? (diárrhoia, “through-flowing”), from ??? (diá, “through”) + ??? (rhé?, “flow”). Spelling later altered to resemble the word's Latin and Greek roots.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?da?.???i?.?/
• Rhymes: -i??

Noun

diarrhea (countable and uncountable, plural diarrheas)

1. A gastrointestinal disorder characterized by frequent and very fluid or watery bowel movements.
2. The watery or very soft excrement that comes from such bowel movements.
   • 2008, Danna Korn and Connie Sarros, Gluten-Free Cooking for Dummies, Chapter 1:

     My Pampers bill is higher than your paycheck, my hands are raw from washing them every six minutes, and I do eight loads of laundry a day because everything we own is covered in diarrhea, and you want me to "plug him up" and wait another three weeks?

   • 2014, L. A. Knight, Dog Training the American Male, 221:

     Why was she covered in diarrhea?

Usage notes

• Diarrhea is the American and Canadian spelling; diarrhoea is the British / Commonwealth (except Canada) spelling.

Synonyms

• (medical condition): the runs, the shits, the squirts (US), the trots, the squits (both UK), the skitters (Scottish and Northern English) (all slang)
• See also Thesaurus:diarrhea

Hyponyms

• Montezuma's revenge (informal)
• Pharaoh's revenge (informal)

Related terms

• galactorrhea/galactorrhoea
• gonorrhea/gonorrhoea
• logorrhea/logorrhoea
• pyorrhea/pyorrhoea
• rheology

Translations

See also

• constipation

English

Noun

scouring (plural scourings)

1. The act of cleaning a surface by rubbing it with a brush, soap and water.
2. Diarrhea. (Now used only of livestock, though also sometimes used of humans into the 1600s.)
   • 1720, E. R. (Gent.), The Experienc'd Farrier: Or Farring Compleated. Containing Every Thing that Belongs to a Compleat Horseman, page 332:

     Another for a violent scouring. Take the Entrails of a Pullet, or great Chicken, all but the Gizzard, and mix with tbem of Spikenard one Ounce, ' and make him swallow it, and this will infallibly stay his Scouring, yea, though it be a Bloody-Flux.

   • 1766, Thomas Wallis (surgeon), The Farrier's and Horseman's Complete Dictionary: Containing the Art of Farriery in All Its Branches:

     For that kind of lax and scouring called bloody flux, see the article BLOODY FLUX.

   • 1840, London Medical Gazette: Or, Journal of Practical Medicine, page 683:

     Thus in 1670 the London bills ascribe 142 deaths to “bloody flux, scouring, and flux,” and 3,690 to “griping in the guts.”

   • 2011, V. Berridge, M. Gorsky, Environment, Health and History, Springer (?ISBN), page 37:

     Flux, bloody flux and scouring feature from the first, but were overtaken in the 1650s by 'plague in the guts', soon renamed 'griping in the guts'. An apparent decline in bloody flux was more than matched by high levels of 'griping in the guts'.

Derived terms

• scouring pad
• scouring brush

Verb

scouring

1. present participle of scour

   Scouring the entire area revealed nothing.

Anagrams

• coursing, sourcing