scandals

Word family

• scandalous
  adjectiveC1
• scandalise
  verbC2
• scandalously
  adverbC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four words describe wrongdoing that draws public attention, but they differ in focus. A scandal is the shocking event or affair itself, usually involving hidden wrongdoing that, once exposed, makes people lose respect: a bribery scandal, a doping scandal. Outrage points instead at the strong public anger an event causes, so you can feel outrage about a scandal. Disgrace centres on the loss of honour suffered by the person or group involved, rather than the public reaction. Controversy is the mildest: it is simply a public argument where people strongly disagree, with no necessary wrongdoing. A new tax can be a controversy without ever becoming a scandal. So: the football team's secret payments became a scandal; fans reacted with outrage; the captain left in disgrace; meanwhile the rule change was merely a controversy.

Common collocations

Etymology

Scandal came into English in the late 1500s from the French word 'scandale', which goes back to the Latin 'scandalum', meaning a cause of stumbling or a trap. That Latin word itself was borrowed from a Greek word for a snare or stumbling block. The early English meaning was close to this religious idea of something that makes a person fall morally; the modern sense of a shocking public event grew out of that over time.