• IPA: /ˈskændəl/

scandal

1. 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.

   • 1591, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene i]:

     O, what a scandal is it to our crown,
     That two such noble peers as ye should jar!

   • 1933 November, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesteron, “The Scandal of Father Brown”, in The Scandal of Father Brown, London; Toronto, Ont.: Cassell and Company, published 1935, OCLC 5896846 ↗, page 1 ↗:

     It would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown, without admitting that he was once involved in a grave scandal.

   • 1990, House of Cards, Season 1, Episode 1:

     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.

2. Damage to one's reputation.

   The incident brought considerable scandal to his family.

   • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], OCLC 16832619 ↗:

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

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

4. (theology) Religious discredit; an act or behaviour which brings a religion into discredit.
5. (theology) Something which hinders acceptance of religious ideas or behaviour; a stumbling-block or offense.
6. Defamatory talk; gossip, slander.

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

   • 1855, Anthony Trollope, The Warden, chapter 1

     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; and Scandal, before she had reprobated Mr. Harding for being made precentor by his friend the bishop, had loudly blamed the bishop for having so long omitted to do something for his friend Mr. Harding.

• French: scandale, esclandre
• German: Skandal
• Italian: scandalo
• Portuguese: escândalo
• Russian: сканда́л
• Spanish: escándalo

• Russian: сканда́л

• Russian: сканда́л

• Russian: злословие

scandal (scandals, present participle scandalling; past and past participle scandalled)

1. (obsolete) To treat opprobriously; to defame; to slander.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Ivlivs Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene ii]:

     I do fawn on men and hug them hard / And after scandal them.

2. (obsolete) To scandalize; to offend.
   • 1855, Robert Potts, Liber Cantabrigiensis

     A propensity to scandal may partly proceed from an inability to distinguish the proper objects of censure