What does scandal mean?

Definitions for scandal
ˈskæn dlscan·dal

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word scandal.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. scandal, dirt, malicious gossipnoun

    disgraceful gossip about the private lives of other people

  2. scandal, outragenoun

    a disgraceful event

Wiktionary

  1. scandalnoun

    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.

  2. scandalnoun

    Damage to one's reputation.

    The incident brought considerable scandal to his family.

  3. scandalnoun

    Widespread moral outrage, indignation, as over an offence to decency.

    When their behaviour was made public it caused a great scandal.

  4. scandalnoun

    Religious discredit; an act or behaviour which brings a religion into discredit.

  5. scandalnoun

    Something which hinders acceptance of religious ideas or behaviour; a stumbling-block or offense.

  6. scandalnoun

    Defamatory talk; gossip, slander.

    According to village scandal, they weren't even married.

  7. Etymology: From scandale, from scandalum, from σκάνδαλον, from skand-. Cognate with scando.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. SCANDALnoun

    Etymology: σ άνδαλον; scandle, French.

    His lustful orgies he enlarg’d
    Even to the hill of scandal, by the grove
    Of Moloch homicide. John Milton, Paradise Lost, b. i.

    If black scandal, or foul-fac’d reproach,
    Attend the sequel of your imposition,
    Your meer enforcement shall acquittance me
    From all the impure blots and stains thereof. William Shakespeare, R. III.

    My known virtue is from scandal free,
    And leaves no shadow for your calumny. John Dryden, Aurengz.

    In the case of scandal, we are to reflect how men ought to judge. John Rogers, Sermons.

  2. To Scandalverb

    To treat opprobriously; to charge falsely with faults.

    Etymology: from the noun.

    You repin’d,
    Scandal’d the suppliants; for the people call’d them
    Time-pleasers, flatterers. William Shakespeare, Coriolanus.

    I do fawn on men, and hug them hard,
    And after scandal them. William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar.

Wikipedia

  1. Scandal

    A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. These reactions are usually noisy and may be conflicting, and they often have negative effects on the status and credibility of the person(s) or organisation involved. Society is scandalised when it becomes aware of breaches of moral norms or legal requirements, often when these have remained undiscovered or been concealed for some time. Such breaches have typically erupted from greed, lust or the abuse of power. Scandals may be regarded as political, sexual, moral, literary or artistic but often spread from one realm into another. The basis of a scandal may be factual or false, or a combination of both. In contemporary times, exposure of a scandalous situation is often made by mass media. Contemporary media has the capacity to spread knowledge of a scandal further than in previous centuries and public interest has encouraged many cases of confected scandals relating to well-known people as well as genuine scandals relating to politics and business. Some scandals are revealed by whistleblowers who discover wrongdoing within organizations or groups, such as Deep Throat (William Mark Felt) during the Watergate scandal in the 1970s in the United States. Whistleblowers may be protected by laws which are used to obtain information of misdeeds and acts detrimental to their establishments. However, the possibility of scandal has always created a tension between society's efforts to reveal wrongdoing and its desire to cover them up ... and the act of covering up (or indeed of revealing) a contentious situation may become a scandal.

ChatGPT

  1. scandal

    A scandal refers to a shocking, immoral, or disgraceful action or event, often involving people in positions of power, fame, or authority. It typically involves behaviors such as corruption, dishonesty, or unethical practices that are publicly exposed and often result in damage to reputation, loss of public trust, or legal consequences. Often, scandals draw significant public attention or media coverage.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Scandalnoun

    offense caused or experienced; reproach or reprobation called forth by what is regarded as wrong, criminal, heinous, or flagrant: opprobrium or disgrace

  2. Scandalnoun

    reproachful aspersion; opprobrious censure; defamatory talk, uttered heedlessly or maliciously

  3. Scandalnoun

    anything alleged in pleading which is impertinent, and is reproachful to any person, or which derogates from the dignity of the court, or is contrary to good manners

  4. Scandalverb

    to treat opprobriously; to defame; to asperse; to traduce; to slander

  5. Scandalverb

    to scandalize; to offend

Wikidata

  1. Scandal

    A scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages the reputation of an institution, individual or creed. A scandal may be based on true or false allegations or a mixture of both. From the Greek σκάνδαλον, a trap or stumbling-block, the metaphor is that wrong conduct can impede or "trip" people's trust or faith. Some scandals are broken by whistleblowers who reveal wrongdoing within organizations or groups, such as Deep Throat during the 1970s Watergate scandal. Sometimes an attempt to cover up a possible scandal ignites a greater scandal when the cover-up fails.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Scandal

    skan′dal, n. something said which is false and injurious to reputation: disgrace: opprobrious censure.—v.t. to defame, to aspire.—ns. Scan′dal-bear′er, a propagator of malicious gossip; Scandalisā′tion, defamation.—v.t. Scan′dalise, to give scandal or offence to: to shock: to reproach: to disgrace: to libel.—n. Scan′dal-mong′er, one who deals in defamatory reports.—adj. Scan′dalous, giving scandal or offence: calling forth condemnation: openly vile: defamatory.—adv. Scan′dalously.—ns. Scan′dalousness; Scan′dalum-magnā′tum, speaking slanderously of high personages, abbrev. Scan. Mag. [Fr. scandale—L. scandalum—Gr. skandalon, a stumbling-block.]

The Roycroft Dictionary

  1. scandal

    Gossip related by a small-bore.

Suggested Resources

  1. scandal

    Song lyrics by scandal -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by scandal on the Lyrics.com website.

Matched Categories

British National Corpus

  1. Nouns Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'scandal' in Nouns Frequency: #2036

How to pronounce scandal?

How to say scandal in sign language?

Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of scandal in Chaldean Numerology is: 2

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of scandal in Pythagorean Numerology is: 9

Examples of scandal in a Sentence

  1. Mark Lopez:

    When that whole scandal happened with the E. coli, when they revamped their food safety. They cut ties with a lot of growers.

  2. Author Rachel Swaby:

    Until that time, Harvard didn't take on women faculty, so when it did, it was a big scandal, she wasn't allowed to use the faculty lounge or to walk in commencement. But she got a warm welcome otherwise.

  3. Lois Lerner:

    Yesterday was a doozy. They called me back to testify on the IRS ‘scandal,’ and I tool (sic) the 5th again because they had been so evil and dishonest in my lawyer’s dealings with them.

  4. Phyllis McGinley:

    Gossip isn't scandal and it's not merely malicious. It's chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shop-talk of the scientist, and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past.

  5. Andrew McCarthy:

    But whether the President's conduct is or is not within the letter of the law is irrelevant; there's a really good reason why, for generations, presidents from across the ideological spectrum have respected the principle of not interfering in federal criminal investigations. That President Trump seems wholly indifferent to this principle, or the potentially devastating consequences of its demise, is the real scandal here. a prosecutor wouldn't make a decision on the basis of one hearsay line in a memo that has not been publicly available and that no one knows the context of.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

scandal#10000#11058#100000

Translations for scandal

From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary

Get even more translations for scandal »

Translation

Find a translation for the scandal definition in other languages:

Select another language:

  • - Select -
  • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
  • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
  • Español (Spanish)
  • Esperanto (Esperanto)
  • 日本語 (Japanese)
  • Português (Portuguese)
  • Deutsch (German)
  • العربية (Arabic)
  • Français (French)
  • Русский (Russian)
  • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
  • 한국어 (Korean)
  • עברית (Hebrew)
  • Gaeilge (Irish)
  • Українська (Ukrainian)
  • اردو (Urdu)
  • Magyar (Hungarian)
  • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
  • Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Italiano (Italian)
  • தமிழ் (Tamil)
  • Türkçe (Turkish)
  • తెలుగు (Telugu)
  • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
  • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
  • Čeština (Czech)
  • Polski (Polish)
  • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
  • Românește (Romanian)
  • Nederlands (Dutch)
  • Ελληνικά (Greek)
  • Latinum (Latin)
  • Svenska (Swedish)
  • Dansk (Danish)
  • Suomi (Finnish)
  • فارسی (Persian)
  • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
  • հայերեն (Armenian)
  • Norsk (Norwegian)
  • English (English)

Word of the Day

Would you like us to send you a FREE new word definition delivered to your inbox daily?

Please enter your email address:


Citation

Use the citation below to add this definition to your bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"scandal." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/scandal>.

Discuss these scandal definitions with the community:

0 Comments

    Are we missing a good definition for scandal? Don't keep it to yourself...

    Image or illustration of

    scandal

    Credit »

    Free, no signup required:

    Add to Chrome

    Get instant definitions for any word that hits you anywhere on the web!

    Free, no signup required:

    Add to Firefox

    Get instant definitions for any word that hits you anywhere on the web!

    Browse Definitions.net

    Quiz

    Are you a words master?

    »
    add details, as to an account or idea
    A abide
    B denudate
    C summon
    D elaborate

    Nearby & related entries:

    Alternative searches for scandal: