punishment vs scourge

punishment

noun
  • A suffering by pain or loss imposed as retribution 

  • A penalty to punish wrongdoing, especially for crime. 

  • Any harsh treatment or experience; rough handling. 

  • The act or process of punishing, imposing and/or applying a sanction. 

scourge

noun
  • A means to inflict such pain or destruction. 

  • A source of persistent trouble such as pestilence that causes pain and suffering or widespread destruction. 

  • A whip, often of leather and often multi-tailed. 

verb
  • To strike with a scourge; to flog. 

How often have the words punishment and scourge occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )