scandal
Syllables: scan·dal/ˈskændəl/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
British/ˈskandəl/
scandal noun: an incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organization involved.
Noun (1)
scandal (countable and uncountable, plural scandals)
- 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!1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- 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:[…].1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC
- Widespread moral outrage, indignation, as over an offence to decency.
- When their behaviour was made public it caused a great scandal.
- A word or deed, lacking in rectitude in some manner, which is an occasion of the spiritual ruin of another.
- Defamatory talk; gossip, slander.
- According to village scandal, they weren't even married.
- Scandal at Barchester affirmed that had it not been for the beauty of his daughter, Mr. Harding would have remained a minor canon; but here probably Scandal lied, as she so often does; for even as a minor canon no one had been more popular among his reverend brethren in the close, than Mr. Harding...1855, Anthony Trollope, “chapter 1”, in The Warden
- amateur or homemade pornography
- commotion.
Verb
scandal (third-person singular simple present scandals, present participle (US) scandaling or (UK) scandalling, simple past and past participle (US) scandaled or (UK) scandalled)
- To defame; to slander.
- I do fawn on men and hug them hard
And after scandal them.1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- I do fawn on men and hug them hard
- To scandalize; to offend.
- A propensity to scandal may partly proceed from an inability to distinguish the proper objects of censure1855, Robert Potts, Liber Cantabrigiensis
Phrase capitalized: SCANDAL
SCANDAL
- Acronym of speciated by cancer development animals.
Noun (2) capitalized: SCANDAL
SCANDAL (plural SCANDALs)
- Ellipsis of SCANDAL taxon (“a species or taxon which speciated due to the SCANDAL process”).
- Ellipsis of SCANDAL process (“the mechanism for speciation through cancer cells becoming independent of the originating creature, and living on”).
scandal meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Pashto and Tagalog
scandal in Hindi
- incident that brings disgrace
- काण्ड kāṇḍ, घोटाला ghoṭālā
scandal in Urdu
- incident that brings disgrace
- گھوٹالا ghoṭālā, اِسْکَینْڈَل iskainḍal
scandal in Pashto
- incident that brings disgrace
- رسوايي raswāyi
scandal in Tagalog
- incident that brings disgrace
- alingasngas, eskandalo
More languagesFewer languages
- scandal in Arabic
- فَضِيحَة faḍīḥa
- scandal in Malay
- skandal
- scandal in Indonesian
- skandal
- scandal in Thai
- เรื่องอื้อฉาว rʉ̂ʉang-ʉ̂ʉ-chǎao
- scandal in Vietnamese
- vụ bê bối, vụ tai tiếng
Examples of scandal in a sentence
- It would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown, without admitting that he was once involved in a grave scandal.1933 November, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “The Scandal of Father Brown”, in The Scandal of Father Brown, London; Toronto, Ont.: Cassell...
- Or a scandal about something people really understand: Sex... or money.1990, House of Cards, season 1, episode 1:
- Scandal at Barchester affirmed that had it not been for the beauty of his daughter, Mr.1855, Anthony Trollope, “chapter 1”, in The Warden:
Synonyms of scandal
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of scandal
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | scandals |
| plural | SCANDALs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | scandals |
| present participle US | scandaling |
| present participle UK | scandalling |
| past participle US | scandaled |
| past US | scandaled |
| past participle UK | scandalled |
| past UK | scandalled |
Origin of scandal
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.
Words formed from scandal
Phrases with scandal
Words that rhyme with scandal
8 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about scandal
- What does scandal mean?
- Scandal means an incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organization involved.
- What is scandal in Hindi?
- Scandal in Hindi is काण्ड (kāṇḍ), घोटाला (ghoṭālā). See Scandal meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use scandal in a sentence?
- It would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown, without admitting that he was once involved in a grave scandal.
- What part of speech is scandal?
- Scandal can be a noun, a verb or a phrase.
- How do you pronounce scandal?
- Scandal is pronounced /ˈskændəl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of scandal?
- The plural of scandal is scandals.
Words near scandal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scandal (page history and authors); SCANDAL (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-scandal.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-scandal.wav.
Cite this entry: “scandal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scandal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.