SCANDAL

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Disgraceful gossip about the private lives of other people

Synonyms:

dirt; malicious gossip; scandal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("scandal" is a kind of...):

comment; gossip; scuttlebutt (a report (often malicious) about the behavior of other people)

Derivation:

scandalise; scandalize (strike with disgust or revulsion)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A disgraceful event

Synonyms:

outrage; scandal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("scandal" is a kind of...):

trouble (an event causing distress or pain)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "scandal"):

skeleton; skeleton in the closet; skeleton in the cupboard (a scandal that is kept secret)

Instance hyponyms:

Teapot Dome; Teapot Dome scandal (a government scandal involving a former United States Navy oil reserve in Wyoming that was secretly leased to a private oil company in 1921; became symbolic of the scandals of the Harding administration)

Watergate; Watergate scandal (a political scandal involving abuse of power and bribery and obstruction of justice; led to the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974)

Derivation:

scandalise; scandalize (strike with disgust or revulsion)

scandalous (giving offense to moral sensibilities and injurious to reputation)

Credits

Context examples:

But if not, there is no object in raking up this scandal against a dead man, foully as he has acted.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In fact, there was a story current among us (I have no idea, and never had, on what authority, but I have believed it for so many years that I feel quite certain it is true), that on a frosty day, one winter-time, he actually did bestow his gaiters on a beggar-woman, who occasioned some scandal in the neighbourhood by exhibiting a fine infant from door to door, wrapped in those garments, which were universally recognized, being as well known in the vicinity as the Cathedral.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The treasurer took a fancy to be jealous of his wife, from the malice of some evil tongues, who informed him that her grace had taken a violent affection for my person; and the court scandal ran for some time, that she once came privately to my lodging.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

We are travelling fast, and as we have no driver with us to carry tales, we go ahead of scandal; but I daresay that fear of the evil eye will follow hard behind us all the way.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I heard from Major Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Why should I not? And yet I hate to think of this old scandal gaining a new lease of life. Did you ever hear of Dawson and Neligan?”

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I'm too detached to talk scandal, and yet at scientific conversaziones I HAVE heard something of Challenger, for he is one of those men whom nobody can ignore.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Yes, brother Jerome, I wish that this matter be disposed of with as little scandal as may be, and yet it is needful that the example should be a public one.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That was the funeral oration of one friend and client; and he could not help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another should be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Perhaps my master might refine a little in these speculations, which he had drawn from what he observed himself, or had been told him by others; however, I could not reflect without some amazement, and much sorrow, that the rudiments of lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, should have place by instinct in womankind.