FreeScrabbleDictionary

scandal

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
10
Words With Friends
13
Letters
7
Pronunciation
/ˈskændəl/
See all 6 pronunciations
/ˈskændəl/ · [ˈskændl̩] · /ˈskeə̯ndəl/ · [ˈskeə̯ndl̩] · /ˈskɛə̯ndəl/ · [ˈskɛə̯ndl̩]

Definition of scandal

12 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)An incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organization involved.
    “Their affair was reported as a scandal by most tabloids.”
    “O, what a scandal is it to our crown, That two such noble peers as ye should jar!”
    “It would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown, without admitting that he was once involved in a grave scandal.”
    “Well, yes, a couple of leaks are all very well, but it takes more than that... A big scandal perhaps. A political scandal. Or a scandal about something people really understand: Sex... or money.”
    “But electric vehicles and the batteries that made them run became ensnared in corporate scandals, fraud, and monopolistic corruption that shook the confidence of the nation and inspired automotive upstarts.”
See all 12 definitions

noun

  1. (countable, uncountable)An incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organization involved.
    “Their affair was reported as a scandal by most tabloids.”
    “O, what a scandal is it to our crown, That two such noble peers as ye should jar!”
    “It would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown, without admitting that he was once involved in a grave scandal.”
    “Well, yes, a couple of leaks are all very well, but it takes more than that... A big scandal perhaps. A political scandal. Or a scandal about something people really understand: Sex... or money.”
    “But electric vehicles and the batteries that made them run became ensnared in corporate scandals, fraud, and monopolistic corruption that shook the confidence of the nation and inspired automotive upstarts.”
  2. (countable, uncountable)Damage to one's reputation.
    “The incident brought considerable scandal to his family.”
    “Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:[…].”
  3. (countable, uncountable)Widespread moral outrage, indignation, as over an offence to decency.
    “When their behaviour was made public it caused a great scandal.”
  4. (countable, uncountable)A word or deed, lacking in rectitude in some manner, which is an occasion of the spiritual ruin of another.
  5. (countable, uncountable)Defamatory talk; gossip, slander.
    “According to village scandal, they weren't even married.”
  6. (Philippines, colloquial, countable, uncountable)amateur or homemade pornography
  7. (Philippines, colloquial, countable, informal, uncountable)commotion.
  8. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of SCANDAL taxon (“a species or taxon which speciated due to the SCANDAL process”).
  9. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of SCANDAL process (“the mechanism for speciation through cancer cells becoming independent of the originating creature, and living on”).

verb

  1. (obsolete)To defame; to slander.
    “I do fawn on men and hug them hard And after scandal them.”
  2. (obsolete)To scandalize; to offend.
    “A propensity to scandal may partly proceed from an inability to distinguish the proper objects of censure”

phrase

  1. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of)Acronym of speciated by cancer development animals.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From Middle French scandale (“indignation caused by misconduct or defamatory speech”), from Ecclesiastical Latin scandalum (“that on which one trips, cause of offense”, literally “stumbling block”), from Ancient Greek σκάνδαλον…

See full etymology

From Middle French scandale (“indignation caused by misconduct or defamatory speech”), from Ecclesiastical Latin scandalum (“that on which one trips, cause of offense”, literally “stumbling block”), from Ancient Greek σκάνδαλον (skándalon, “a trap laid for an enemy, a cause of moral stumbling”), from Proto-Indo-European *skand- (“to jump”). Cognate with Latin scandō (“to climb”). First attested from Old Northern French escandle, but the modern word is a reborrowing. Doublet, via Old French esclandre, of slander. Sense evolution from "cause of stumbling, that which causes one to sin, stumbling block" to "discredit to reputation, that which brings shame, thing of disgrace" is possibly due to early influence from other similar sounding words for infamy and disgrace (compare Old English scand (“ignominity, scandal, disgraceful thing”), Old High German scanda (“ignominy, disgrace”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌰 (skanda, “shame, disgrace”)). See shand, shend, shonda.

Anagrams of scandal

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