scandal
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "scandal", 7-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "scandal" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "scandal" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
scandal is aEnglishnoun. It means: An incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organization involved. Pronounced /ˈskændəl/. It ranks #5,451 in English word frequency. Often confused with sandal.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | scandal |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈskændəl/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #5,451 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for scandal is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈskændəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,451 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for scandal, with forms such as "csandal", "sacndal", and "scadnal". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "sandal", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is scandal, spelled S-C-A-N-D-A-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An incident or event that disgraces or damages the reputation of the persons or organization involved.
- 2Damage to one's reputation.
- 3Widespread moral outrage, indignation, as over an offence to decency.
- 4A word or deed, lacking in rectitude in some manner, which is an occasion of the spiritual ruin of another.
- 5Defamatory talk; gossip, slander.
- 6amateur or homemade pornography; (informal) commotion.
Etymology
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.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: csandal,sacndal,scadnal,scanadl,scandall,scanddal,scandla,scanndal,sccandal,scnadal,sscandal
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for scandal
Misspelling Variants of "scandal"
Frequency rank: #5,451 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: