scandal [ME] The words scandal and slander [ME] are closely related. Both go back to Latin scandalum ‘cause of offence’, from Greek skandalon ‘snare, stumbling block’. Originally scandal was a term restricted to the Christian Church. It referred to behaviour by a religious person that might bring discredit on their beliefs, and then, going back to the idea of a ‘stumbling block’, something that hinders faith. Our modern sense of an event causing general public outrage dates from the late 16th. See libel.