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Scandal   Listen
noun
Scandal  n.  
1.
Offense caused or experienced; reproach or reprobation called forth by what is regarded as wrong, criminal, heinous, or flagrant: opprobrium or disgrace. "O, what a scandal is it to our crown, That two such noble peers as ye should jar!" "(I) have brought scandal To Israel, diffidence of God, and doubt In feeble hearts."
2.
Reproachful aspersion; opprobrious censure; defamatory talk, uttered heedlessly or maliciously. "You must not put another scandal on him." "My known virtue is from scandal free."
3.
(Equity) Anything alleged in pleading which is impertinent, and is reproachful to any person, or which derogates from the dignity of the court, or is contrary to good manners.
Synonyms: Defamation; detraction; slander; calumny; opprobrium; reproach; shame; disgrace.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scandal" Quotes from Famous Books



... exhortation, worthy of the liquid balm which is to renew his powers and strengthen his organs. PUNCHINELLO has had under consideration the question of inventing some drink which might happily satisfy the wants of the thirsty and avoid the scandal which "gin-and-milk" has created among the godly. Many correspondents have suggested to him various decoctions, but, as they all involved spirituous ingredients, he has felt compelled to reject them. After considerable trial, he flatters himself, however, that he has fallen upon ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various

... to the dramatic recital of a scandal at Haworth, and this entirely disappears from the third edition. A casual reference to a girl who had been seduced, and had found a friend in Miss Bronte, gave further trouble. 'I have altered the word "seduced" to "betrayed,"' writes Mrs. Gaskell to Martha Brown, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... just exactly what peccadillo had brought about Mr. Floyd Forrest's sudden relief from duty at Chicago and orders to proceed to the frontier; but this was a subject on which the tutor was now decidedly coy. He had given Mrs. Lawrence to understand that because of some scandal and to prevent further talk the officer had been summarily sent away. Finding that none of the officers knew what had brought about the order, he worked among the clerks,—who knew nothing at all. One of these latter lived not far from the Lambert Library, ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... these floating dungeons, were the sacrifices to the ambition of King George. They died by hundreds and even thousands during the war; the whole shore was lined with the unmarked graves of the patriot dead; the prison-ships were the scandal of the time, and their starved inmates seldom bore long the pains of the merciless imprisonment. It is said that the bones of eleven thousand dead were found upon the shore, and reverently buried in ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Miss Mary, checking her tears. "No more than a wean and here she must be singing at supper parties as brave as the mother before her. It's a scandal! And it shows the bitterness of the quarrel to have her here, for she was never here ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... whatever with this sort of learning, yet was put to death for philosophy. It was only afterwards that the reputation of Plato, shining forth by his life, and because he subjected natural necessity to divine and more excellent principles, took away the obloquy and scandal that had attached to such contemplations, and obtained these studies currency among all people. So his friend Dion, when the moon, at the time he was to embark from Zacynthus to go against Dionysius, was eclipsed, was not in the least disturbed, but went on, and, arriving at Syracuse, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... other impatiently. "If it was anywhere but here, if there was any way to avoid all the nasty scandal, I'd come a-shootin' for ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... Marguerite de Valois, who ought to have been with her husband, the King of Navarre, at his little court at Nerac, remained instead at the court of France, to be its greatest ornament. She was, alas, its greatest scandal, also. But I admired her none the less for that, as she stood there, erect among her women, full of color and grace. Vast possibilities of mischief seemed buried in the depths of the big and brilliant eyes which gave so much life to ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... dress her like a lady? Bah! A likely story!" Isabel tossed her fine, dark head. "I'm not blind; I see what goes on about me. This will make a pretty scandal among your friends— she as black as the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... and when he is dealing with obscure elusive phenomena and has to defend himself before juries and judges who, as a rule, know nothing about the conditions which influence the phenomena, it would be wonderful if a man could get through without an occasional scandal. At the same time the whole system of paying by results, which is practically the present system, since if a medium never gets results he would soon get no payments, is a vicious one. It is only ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... great kindness during the two years of life that remained to him. With her, however, were Alexandre, whose companionship was rather dull, and his younger sister, Seraphine, a big, vicious, and flighty girl of eighteen, who, as it happened, soon left the house amid a frightful scandal—an elopement with a certain Baron Lowicz, a genuine baron, but a swindler and forger, to whom it became necessary to marry her. She then received a dowry of 300,000 francs. Alexandre, after his father's death, made a money ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... than that. It has been a scandal to the medical profession, a source of travesty to judicial procedure and all too often a means of defeating ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... archly, "if a man wants a biting lampoon, or an handsome panegyric, some newspaper scandal, or a sonnet ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... another party, of course, which deprecated any scandal which would involve the good name of the State or reflect upon the South, and who insisted that in time these things would pass away and there would be no trace of them in future generations. But the colonel insisted that so also would the victims of the system pass away, who, being already ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... this matter is not to be commended, my good Irma," said the neighbour sententiously; "everyone thinks that for a tokened man it is a scandal to be always hanging round that pert Jewess. Why didn't he propose to her instead of to Elsa, if he liked ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... carin' whether ye be or no. Like as not, if she's shook ye, yer full of resentment. Them is young folks' ways. But fur or agin her, if ye can harbor scandal about Billy's Janet, ye've got t' share it with me what knows how t' strangle it fust an' last. Spit it ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... produce an effect. But goodness is not a sufficiently noticeable quality to be dilated upon; it would not repay ambition or curiosity. It is a quality mostly attributed to the saints, and a biographer prefers dilating upon the defects of his hero, upon some adventure or scandal—means by which it is easy, with a spark of cleverness, to make a monster of a saint: for, alas! the most rooted convictions are often sacrificed for the sake of amusing a reader who is difficult to please, and of satisfying ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... was present at the race was one Capt. Jim White, to whom I had sent word during the war that when I met him again he would have to apologize or fight because of circulating some scandal about a young woman ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger

... was dead, the elder brother came to attend the funeral. The night before that event the husband felt unhappy about the part he had played. He had given no occasion for scandal, but he had never disguised, even from the mother of his son, the motives of his marriage. The poor girl was gone; he had only trained himself for the pursuit of her dowry, and the voice of love had been silent. Troubled by such thoughts, he walked about his room all night long, and ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... when Angelique went off like a laughing sprite upon the arm of De Pean. "I am glad to get rid of the women sometimes, and feel like a man," he said to Cadet, who sat drinking and telling stories with hilarious laughter to two or three boon companions, and indulging in the coarsest jests and broadest scandal about the ladies at the ball, as they passed by the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... Lefty Joe. He approached this murder as a statesman approaches the removal of a foe from the path of public prosperity. There was no more rancor in his attitude. It was rather the blissful largeness of the heart that comes to the politician when he unearths the scandal which will blight ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... his pension; and also comes Mr. Hollier a little fuddled, and so did talk nothing but Latin, and laugh, that it was very good sport to see a sober man in such a humour, though he was not drunk to scandal. At dinner comes a summons for this office and the Victualler to attend a Committee of Parliament this afternoon, with Sir D. Gawden, which I accordingly did, with my papers relating to the sending of victuals to Sir John Harman's ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... me and Jack Trentman yesterday morning is true, there'll be the doggonedest scandal this town ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... of giving offence: But, upon looking into her chamber, to his great astonishment, he found her in bed with a handsome young fellow about five-and-twenty, whose name was OBADEE: He retreated with some haste and confusion, but was soon made to understand, that such amours gave no occasion to scandal, and that Obadee was universally known to have been selected by her as the object of her private favours. The lady being too polite to suffer Mr Banks to wait long in her anti-chamber, dressed herself with more than usual expedition, and, as a token of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... to see her," admitted Mrs. Mills. "She won't be happy until she gets some piece of scandal off ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... attractive for such treatment of such a man?" You will hardly reply that it does. But if it does not, may it not be well if all of you do what lies within your power to prevent the Christianity of the nineteenth century from repeating the scandal? ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... reduction in order to call attention to housing accommodation provided for men employed at Rosyth. Chairman ruled debate out of order on Supplementary Estimates. Lord BOB nevertheless managed to sum up purport of intended speech by denouncing state of things as "a scandal and disgrace to the Government." At this stage Opposition Whips, counting heads, discovered that, if not at the moment in actual minority, Government would, if division were rushed, find themselves in parlous state. The word—it was "Mum"—went ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various

... Majesty ratified the peace upon Oath in a great chamber of the palace.... It was pretended that the Clergy would not suffer this to be done in a Church or Chapel where the neglect of reverence of the Holy Sacrament would give scandal." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various

... xxxiii. 38; this concludes a "revelation" concerning the divorce and marriage to Mohammed of the wife of his adopted son Zayd. Such union, superstitiously held incestuous by all Arabs, was a terrible scandal to the rising Faith, and could be abated only by the "Commandment of Allah." It is hard to believe that a man could act honestly after such fashion; but we have seen in our day a statesman famed for sincerity and uprightness ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... work right merrily, but before the invitations were issued an obstacle was met which threatened shipwreck to the amiable enterprise; the wives of several gentlemen who had been invited privately refused pointblank to break bread with the prima donna on account of the scandal caused by her separation from the Marquis de Caux and marriage to Nicolini, the tenor. Somewhat perplexed, the two critics visited her a second time, and put the matter to her as delicately as possible. Would she, under the circumstances, be the guest ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... consequences, when a bold and strong man was put upon the defensive, or drawn to the offensive, by the habit of inconsiderate aspersion into which some of his neighbors had been led, and the bad repute put upon him by scandal-mongers. He was evidently an industrious, hard-working man. He was a person of some means, a holder of considerable property in lands and other forms. Deeds are often found on record from and to him. He owned meadows near Ipswich River. His homestead, during ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... at our expense, and our tranquillity was continually disturbed by persons, who came as friends, to tell us what was said of us by enemies. These reports we always resented with becoming spirit; but scandal ever ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... laboratory, the labours of which have not only illuminated mankind but enlarged the sphere of science itself; which has carried its master's fame to the remotest corner of the civilized world; and will now with equal celerity convey the infamy of its destruction to the disgrace of the age and the scandal of the British name.' It is not necessary to supplement Arthur Young's burst of indignation with private bursts of our own. We can afford to be as philosophic over the matter as Priestley was. That feeling was hot against him even in London is manifest from the fact that the day after his ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... and wisdom of the Queen, who by this politic device, had rid herself of a troublesome business with as little scandal as possible, and avoided staining her own hands in the blood of a foster-brother. Had she ordered his death forthwith, they said, it would have been supposed also that she had put him away because he was of a royal race, one who, in the future, might ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... emphatic—"when he turned his attention to a second marriage and that with a very young girl—(I can name her to you, gentlemen, if you wish) her patient soul may have been roused; she may have troubled him with importunities; may have threatened him with a scandal which would have interfered greatly with his political hopes if it had not ended them at once. I can conceive such an end to her long patience, can't you, gentlemen? And what is more, if this were so, and the gentleman found the situation intolerable, it might account ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... with the youth Theodosius; when her deluded lord charged upon the scandal-mongers with the very horns ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... dinner. As soon as they had sat down she began, with an unnatural vivacity, to tell them where she had been. That horse show! It had never seemed so silly to her. The same old stable slang interspersed with the same old scandal. And to-night Fanny Brassfield, instead of falling upon her bed in a stupor of futility, was going to give a big dinner for the very same people. "I'm surprised," she exclaimed, turning her flushed face toward Brantome, "that you weren't dragged into it. ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... enjoy the recollection of the scene he had described, for he now burst into another hearty laugh, to the great amazement of Lecoq, and the scandal of Goguet, the ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... from the St. Johns to the Connecticut if he had pleased; and he had servants and horses and attire such as no governor in all the provinces could boast. He built himself a fine house out of stone, and the life he led in it was a scandal and a byword everywhere. For all that, there was not a man to be found who had not a good word to say for Willan Blaycke, and not a woman who did not look pleased and smile if he so much as spoke to her. He was generous, with a generosity so princely ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... is—that, in two months' time, various grave men, amongst whom our friend Gillman marches first in great pomp, are found to have faces shining and glorious as that of AEsculapius; a fact of which we have already explained the secret meaning. And scandal says (but then what will not scandal say?) that a hogshead of opium goes up daily through Highgate tunnel. Surely one corroboration of our hypothesis may be found in the fact, that Vol. I. of Gillman's Coleridge is for ever to stand unpropped by Vol. II. For we have already ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... was in the show business thirty years, you needn't feel called on to post me on fakes," said Hiram, tartly. "But the bigger the fake is the better it catches the crowd. If she'd simply been an old scandal-monger at a quiltin'-bee and started a story about us, we could run down the story and run old scandal-grabber up a tree. But when a woman goes into a trance and a sperit comes teeterin' out from the dark behind the stage ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... ought to tell you," she continued—"because then you will be able to judge him better and spare his memory from foolish and wicked scandal. He was not my father—I was only his ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... we women, aren't we—and superstitious, a little. Remember, Parson dear, we must keep our secret. Think of the scandal and misery for poor Eric if this history became known. For ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero

... of them are always lamenting that I do not marry. Supposing I made up my mind to marry some one of good enough family, but who was in a somewhat doubtful position, concerning whose antecedents, in fact there was a certain amount of scandal. Would ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... was little better then, I dare say. And Ludovico says (but pray be secret, ma'am) that his excellenza introduced her only to impose upon the world, that had begun to make free with her character. So when people saw my lady notice her, they thought what they had heard must be scandal. The other two are the mistresses of Signor Verezzi and Signor Bertolini; and Signor Montoni invited them all to the castle; and so, yesterday, he gave a great entertainment; and there they were, all drinking Tuscany ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... O'Day," the men had agreed. "That comes of marrying a woman young enough to be your daughter." "She ought to have known better," was the verdict of the women. "So many other ways of getting what you want without making a scandal," this from a duchess from behind her fan to a divorcee. But few words of sympathy for the deserted husband escaped any of them and, except from his old servants, Felix ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... my time faithful and true, Expecting to be placed In happy freedom, as my due, To all the joys thou hast: Ill husbandry in love is such A scandal to love's power, We ought not to misspend so much As one ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... of Magnanapoli at the end of April 1581. That is to say, Marcello and she secured their prize, as well as they were able, the moment after Francesco had been removed by murder. But no sooner had the marriage become known, than the Pope, moved by the scandal it created, no less than by the urgent instance of the Orsini and Medici, declared it void. After some while spent in vain resistance, Bracciano submitted, and sent Vittoria back to her father's house. By an order issued under Gregory's own hand, she was next removed to the prison of Corte Savella, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... There would be a banquet. Murgatroyd would be petted by everybody. There would be painful efforts to impress Calhoun with the splendid conduct of public health matters on Weald. He would be told much scandal. He might find one man, somewhere, who passionately labored to advance the welfare of his fellow humans by finding out how to keep them well, or failing that how to make them well when they got sick. And in two days, or three, ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... interpret this your dream. You are lodg'd within his arms who shall protect you From all the fevers of a jealous husband, From the poor envy of our phlegmatic duchess. I 'll seat you above law, and above scandal; Give to your thoughts the invention of delight, And the fruition; nor shall government Divide me from you longer, than a care To keep you great: you shall to me at once Be dukedom, health, wife, children, friends, ...
— The White Devil • John Webster

... has a little child on her arm, then the town has something to talk about. Is it Merchant Lund again, as it was last year? Lund, who since then had been known only as "the Herring Merchant"? Or is it some sixteen- year-old apprentice, a scandal to his pastor and schoolmaster, whose hands ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... received with general caution; as also Edwards's stories of the extravagant practices of the Baptists in their conventicles and at their river-dippings. Any story of the kind was welcome to Edwards, especially if it made a scandal out of some dipping of women-converts by a Baptist preacher. Baillie, who took more trouble in sifting his information, and who distinctly allows that the Anabaptists, like other people, ought to have the benefit of the principle "Let no error be charged upon any man which he ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... letters of this kind, I have often observed the writer uneasy at the scandal he has seasoned his letter with, and concluding earnestly that his letter, after perusal, should be thrown to the flames. A wish which appears to have been rarely complied with; and this may serve as a hint to some to restrain their tattling pens, if they ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... pursoo me an' Yuba throughout them four feverish days. We drifts from one drink-shop to the other, arm in arm, as peaceful an' pleased a pair of sots as ever disturbs the better element. Which we're the scandal of Tucson; we-all is that thickly amiable it's a insult to other men. Thus ends my first dooel; a conflict as bloodless as she is victorious. How long it would have took me an' Yuba to thoroughly cement our friendships will never be known. ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... society like that of Edinburgh there was a good deal of scandal and gossip; every one's character and conduct were freely criticised, and by none more than by my aunt and her friends. She used to sit at a window embroidering, where she not only could see every one that passed, but with a small telescope could look ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... grateful to him: In a word, M'r Hobbes is one of the most antient acquaintance I have in the World, and of whom I have alwaies had a great esteem, as a Man who besides his eminent parts of Learning and knowledg, hath bin alwaies looked upon as a Man of Probity, and a life free from scandal; and it may be there are few Men now alive, who have bin longer known to him then I have bin in a fair and friendly ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... very solemn appeal to Christian men. The Church is the garden where this peace should flourish. The disgrace of the Church is its envyings, jealousies, ill-natured scandal, idle gossip, love of preeminence, willingness to impute the worst possible motives to one another, sharp eyes for our brother's failings and none for our own. I am not pleading for any mawkish sentimentality, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... heard that it was the firm purpose of Roberval to put the offending bride on shore, giving her only the old nurse for company, and there to leave her with provisions for three months, trusting to some other vessel to take the exiled women away within that time. The very ladies whose love of scandal had first revealed to him the alleged familiarities, now besought him with many tears to abandon the thought of a doom so terrible. Vainly Madame de Noailles implored mercy for the young girl from a penalty such as was never imposed in any of Madame de Scudery's romances; vainly the Huguenot minister ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... danger, and denounced such abuses as Aelred, abbot of Rievaulx, reveals, as we have seen, so early as the twelfth century: old women, talkative ones and newsbringers, sitting before the window of the recluse, "and telling her tales, and feeding her with vain news and scandal, and telling her how this monk or that clerk or any other ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... proved my ruin. My respect for marriage led to the discovery of my misconduct. The scandal must be expiated; I was arrested, suspended, and dismissed; I was the victim of my scruples rather than of my incontinence, and I had reason to believe, from the reproaches which accompanied my disgrace, that ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... death of Piccinino onwards, the foundations of new States by the Condottieri became a scandal not to be tolerated. The four great Powers, Naples, Milan, the Papacy, and Venice, formed among themselves a political equilibrium which refused to allow of any disturbance. In the States of the Church, which swarmed with petty tyrants, who in part ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... di Sant' Ambrogio; "To mount the stairs of Saint Ambrose," a proverb allusive to the business of the school of scandal. Varchi explains it by a circumstance so common in provincial cities. On summer evenings, for fresh air and gossip, the loungers met on the steps and landing-places of the church of St. Ambrose: whoever ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... attractive woman of her day, and which caused the bravest soldiers and the wisest scholars to lament the untimely death of the youthful Duchess Beatrice. In all the difficult and tangled ways which they were separately called upon to tread, the breath of scandal, the slander of idle tongues, never sullied their fair names. Both princesses held fast to the ideal of their girlhood, and, leading the same pure and spotless life, left the same gracious memory behind them, alike in the old Mantuan city on the banks of the classic ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... being a beastly Major," said Doggie. "They have heaps of suits. On the march, there are motor-lorries full of them. It's the scandal of the army. The wretched Tommy has but one suit to his name. That's why, sir, I've taken the liberty of appearing ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... of its fruit. There is a mirador in the garden which can be seen from the road, and from which there is a very extensive view. I was very anxious for admission only to the garden, and pleaded the manly appearance of my riding-hat, which would prevent all scandal were I seen from a distance; but the complaisance of the good prior would not go quite so far as that, so I sat in the sacristy and conversed with a good- natured old monk with a double chin, whilst ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... the eastern coast of Africa. The Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best known in this country through a threatening diplomatic incident that occurred a few years ago. The American consul at the capital occupied a dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy beach between. Greatly to the scandal of this official's family, and against repeated remonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city persisted in using the beach for bathing. One day a woman came down to the edge of the water and was stooping to remove her attire (a pair ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... know about that," said Aiken. "He doesn't know the ins and outs of the story—what I've been telling you. That's on the inside—that's cafe scandal. That side of it would never reach him. I suppose Joe Fiske is president of a dozen steamship lines, and all he does is to lend his name to this one, and preside at board meetings. The company's lawyers tell him whatever they think he ought to ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... preeminent ambition to teach as many years as it was necessary to obtain a pension. There were the superintendents, the supervisors, the special teachers, the principals—petty officers of a petty tyranny in which too often seethed gossip, scandal, intrigue. There were the "soft places"; the deceitful, the easy, the harsh principals; the teachers' institutes to which the poor teacher was forced to pay her scanty dollars. There were bulletins, rules, counter-rules. As she talked, Sommers caught the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... closely followed by several friends of Mrs. Johnson who had come to swell the display of respect and made only vague, confused impressions upon Mr. Polly's mind. (Aunt Mildred, who was an unexplained family scandal, had declined ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... name is John Thomas Raynor—always called John Thomas, except sometimes, in malice, Coddy. His face sets in fury when he is addressed, from a distance, with this abbreviation. There is considerable scandal about John Thomas in half a dozen villages. He flirts with the girl conductors in the morning, and walks out with them in the dark night, when they leave their tram-car at the depot. Of course, the girls quit the service frequently. Then he flirts and walks ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... brings a greater contempt on any profession than poverty, it is determined to settle very handsome salaries on the gentlemen that are employed by the bank, that they may, by a generosity of living, reconcile men to an office, that has lain under so much scandal of late, as to be undertaken by none but curates, clerks ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... Scandal, of course, could not leave her untouched. But her position in society was never challenged. People said dreadful things about her, but everyone who did not know her wanted to know her, and no one who knew her wished not to know her. She "stood out" from all the other women in England of her ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... tell you, Mollie, if I would, the shock and the scandal that ran through Steeple Hill, and I wouldn't if I could. If it were in my power, such horrors would never reach your innocent ears. But they were gone, and Stephen Dane was like a man mad. He drank, and drank, and drank until he was blind drunk, and then, in spite ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... that case there would be an open scandal. We would know something for certain. Nowadays they even relate such stories in the newspapers, and my father is so ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... Tyson be such a fool! I sincerely hope, he will never want money. I am not surprised at Troubridge's abuse; but, his tongue is no scandal. You make me laugh, when you ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson

... have never known one who had any pretensions to equal talents. Her brother loved her tenderly. The First Consul looked upon her as his child. And it is only in that country so fertile in the inventions of scandal, that so foolish an accusation could have been imagined, as that any feeling less pure than paternal affection actuated his conduct towards her. The vile calumny met ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... well. The best plan will be for me to step out of the bamboo grove which is behind the house, and to creep round the verandah, and I can listen to these fellows holding their consultation: they will certainly be raking up all sorts of scandal about me. It will be all in harmony, then, if I kick down the shutters and sliding-doors with a noise like thunder. And what fun ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... scandal, yet I think there was an habitue of the caffe in Bassano who could have given some of its particulars from personal recollection. He was an old and smoothly shaven gentleman, in a scrupulously white waistcoat, whom we saw every evening in a corner of the caffe ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... bacchanalian prelude to what might come later. No sooner was this dance finished than another began. Some lithe creature came forth to dance, in bright scarlet, the passacaglia. The glasses were refilled and the noise became more boisterous; and the scandal more flagrant. The candles were set aglow again and tables were brought for those wishing to gamble. And one richly dressed and full of wine sprung upon a table and held aloft a ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... this scandal to humanity, in the presence of many who came to visit at Fulham, took this poor honest man by the fingers, and held his hand directly over the flame of a wax candle having three or four wicks, supposing that, being terrified by the smart and pain ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... of the garrison were soon busy over such a welcome morsel. Since the Gropphusen's flirtation with Major Schrader a winter ago, she had furnished no cause of scandal. All the busier ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... she had written a letter to the son of Squire Nuttall asking him to give up his dissipated habits, which were the scandal of the country, no one was surprised, though many were shocked, and the poorer tenants of the estate alarmed lest some indirect wrath might fall upon them. When neither Squire nor son took the smallest notice of the letter she was blamed universally as having gone ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... Lindsay. Since the adventure which had brought these two young persons together, and, after coming so near a disaster, had ended in a mere humiliation and disappointment, and but for Master Gridley's discreet kindness might have led to foolish scandal, Myrtle had never referred to it in any way. Nobody really knew what her plans had been except Olive and Cyprian, who had observed a very kind silence about the whole matter. The common version of the story was harmless, and near enough to the truth,—down the river,—boat ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... this and that, affection generated by the merits of the object for which or whom it is felt, treachery, deception, disrespect and respect, theft, killing, desire of concealment, vexation, wakefulness, ostentation, haughtiness, attachment, devotion, contentment, exultation, gambling, indulgence in scandal, all relations arising out of women, attachment to dancing, instrumental music and songs—all these qualities, ye learned Brahmanas, have been said to belong to Passion. Those men on Earth who meditate on the past, present, and the future, who are devoted ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... misunderstood. The impression has gone abroad, and to-day holds possession of many otherwise well-informed people, that a large and growing party in the Episcopal Church has openly declared itself wearied out with overmuch prayer and praise. Were such indeed the fact, the scandal would be grave; but the real truth about the matter is that the promoters of shortened services, instead of seeking to diminish, are really eager to see multiplied the amount of worship rendered in our churches. ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... them that they have elder folk, who will keep their house together as long as they're living. And yet, the silly fools, they long to be their own masters, though when they do have their own way, they get in a mess directly to the scandal and amusement of all worthy folk. One here and there, to be sure, will be sorry for them, but for the most part they'll all laugh. No one can help laughing either; they'll invite guests, and not know how they should sit, and what's more, as likely ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky

... sacred enough to prevent an accusation that he had once pocketed the money for two hundred thousand stand of arms, which had been intended as a present to the United States from the King of France. The oft-repeated scandal of the lost million francs was freshly ventilated. Yet so precious was freedom of speech in America that even those attacked hesitated to follow British pattern in placing a censor over the press. Even Patrick Henry, being rapidly won to the support ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... I understand. I guess a wistful polyp that has strokes Of feeling faint to gallivant on land Will come to be a scandal to his folks; Legs he will sprout, in spite of ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... punishment of priests for vicious lives (History of England, vol. i. pp. 178-180); and asserts that their offences were punished lightly, while another measure was dealt out to seculars. He might as well select the cases of scandal given by Protestant clergymen in modern times from the law books, and hold them up as specimens of the lives of all their brethren. The cases were exceptions; and though they do prove, what is generally admitted, that the moral condition of the clergy was not all that could be desired ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... I will not have his money—not more than enough to keep me from being a scandal to his family. I will not have it. It is a curse to me, and has been from the first. What right have I to all that money, because—because—because—" She could not finish her sentence, but turned away from them, and walked by herself ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... confidants of others less wise than Susan. Mrs. Stanton had passed the story along to Victoria Woodhull, who late in 1872 had revived her Weekly for a crusade on what she called "the social question" and had published her expose, "The Beecher-Tilton Scandal Case." As a result the lives of all involved were being ruined by ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... Pompadour with a view to securing the influence of Louis XV. in the impending war. This was not the only time that Maria Theresa sacrificed the woman in her to the ruler, for though above all breath of scandal, and devotedly attached to husband and children, she never forgot that she was Austria, and must maintain her inheritance. Then came on the Seven Years' War, in which she had as allies almost all Europe, though at its close she had to give up the last hope of ever regaining Silesia, which was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... seaman turned fiercely and strode up to him, and then, to the scandal of the bystanders and the dismay of Mr. William Green, gave a loud yell and fled full speed up the road. Flower followed in hot pursuit, and owing, perhaps, to the feeling of lightness before mentioned, ran him down nearly a ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... are the chief sinners, it is appropriate that Jews should be the chief avengers of the dishonor done to their own people, and in many cases to their own women. We feel confident that unless something is done, and done quickly, a scandal of the most intense character will break forth, and only by prompt action can its worst effects be warded off from the fair ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... one day spoke of me, not knowing that I was near him; or perhaps he knew and thought it would be good for me. 'Oh, Trenchard,' he said. 'He ought to be in a nunnery ... and he'd be quite safe, too. He'd never cause a scandal!' They thought of me as something not quite human. My father was very old now. Just before he died, he said: 'I'd like to have had a son!' He never noticed me at his bedside when he died. I was ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... the beer in this house!" cried Mrs. Wilmerton. "He threatened Aunt Martha that if she did not give it to him freely, he would have it found here, and make a scandal! Beer hidden between the quilt and the mattress of Aunt Martha's bed, and she Secretary of the Ladies' Temperance League! It's awful! Martha is so headstrong! She's getting herself in an awful fix! She never should have had a thing to do with that ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... "are in terror lest they should be, and have tried to get them. Though I do not doubt but they are an olio of lies and scandal, I should like to see them. She had parts, and ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... who at last have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are a banker, or, at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great amount. If, in an unguarded hour——But I will hope better. Consider the scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go to see a Quaker hanged that would be indifferent to the fate of a Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the sale of your poems alone, not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... under the active leadership of Neilson of Quebec, a British supporter of French claims, an anti-union movement had been started.[35] In July of the same year La Fontaine visited Toronto, to canvass, said scandal, for the speaker's chair in the united assembly; and in any case he was able to assure his compatriots that they had sympathizers among the British in the West. The Tory paper in Sydenham's new capital, Kingston, in a review and forecast of the situation, ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... forewarn you that in the performance of these ceremonies [ratification by King of Spain of treaty of peace with England], which is likely to be done in the King's Chapel, you have especial care that it be not done in the forenoon, in the time of Mass, to the scandal of our religion, but rather in the afternoon, at what time their service is more free from note of superstition."—(King James the First to Lord Howard, then Earl of Nottingham and Ambassador to Spain. Biographies Brit, ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... stop a while with Aloysius. He is well worth it. Aloysius, who looked a pass between Ichabod Crane and Smike; Aloysius, with his bit of scandal burnished with wit; who, after a long, hard Saturday, would go home to scrub the floor of the dingy lodgings where he lived with his invalid mother, and who rose in the cold dawn of Sunday morning to go to early mass, so that he might return to ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... appeared at the corners of his eyes. Evidently he appreciated some comedy in this recital. Down near his feet, however, little Jim, his grandson, was visibly horror-stricken. His hands were clasped nervously, and his eyes were wide with astonishment at this terrible scandal, his most magnificent ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... credit with his merchant, only with the gingle of his spur and the jerk of his wand[134]." Allowing for the exaggeration of satire, we cannot doubt that this portrait is in the main correct. It indicates a man who follows fashion, even in swearing, to the excess of foppery, who delights in scandal, who contracts debts with an easy conscience, and who is withal a merry fellow and a wit. All this is in accordance with what we know of his life. We can picture him at Oxford serenading the Magdalen dons with his "base viol," or perhaps organizing a night party to disturb the ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... state; but when the children began to tell their eager story, and hold up their grapes to her, she burst again into tears, and cried: 'Oh, my dear sister, if you would be warned. It is making a scandal, indeed it is! They call you ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... will be most welcome; but much would it annoy me if the army of thy king should enter, because that, under shadow of it, which is said to be great and riotous, the factions and bands of Rome might rise up and cause uproar and scandal, wherefrom great discomforts might happen to the citizens.'" For three weeks the king and the pope offered the spectacle, only too common in history, of the hypocrisy of might pitted against the hypocrisy of religion. At last the pope saw the necessity of yielding; he sent for Prince ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... independently of you. It would be a bad advertisement for Oakham and Pendules if it got abroad—as it assuredly will if you persist in your attitude—that an innocent client of yours was almost sent to the gallows through your wrong defence at his trial. It is in your hands to prevent such a scandal from becoming public property. But if you are going to stand on professional etiquette it is just as well you should understand that I am quite prepared to act independently of you. I have sufficient influence to obtain an order from the governor of the gaol for an interview with the ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... his superior in the army. To the credit of all of the enlisted men of the Regular Army referred to, who received commissions in the volunteer service, all served honorably and were mustered out without bringing any scandal of any sort ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... scrambled over the low hillside till it made a juncture with Willoughby's Lane, by descending that ancient cow-path and bringing Len to the privacy of his side-door, Thor endeavored to keep his father's partner from becoming an object of public scandal. He took this trouble not because he bothered about public scandal in itself, but in order to ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... since, except by Fontanini, who would identify Pigna with Mopso. There seems, however, to be little doubt possible on the point, though it is not to Tasso's credit. For an audience conversant with the inner life of the court, the references to Elpino contained whole volumes of contemporary scandal. In Licori we may see Lucrezia Bendidio. This lady, the wife of Count Paolo Machiavelli, and sister-in-law of Guarini, is said to have been the mistress of Cardinal Luigi d' Este; but Pigna, too, courted her, and brooked no rivalry on the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... too small for us to indulge in scandal," she replied. "It really is such a pity. One so seldom meets any one worth talking to who doesn't know everything there is that shouldn't be known about everybody. About Count Sabatini, for instance, I could tell you ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... precluded from all participation in the joyousness of the festivities. This indulgence had been accorded on the condition that the parties should cease their wrangling, and otherwise conduct themselves in a way not to bring scandal on the exhibition in which the pride of every Vevaisan was so deeply enlisted. All the captives, the innocent as well as the guilty, gladly subscribed to the terms; for they found themselves in a temporary duresse which did not admit of any ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... how well soe'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe, Give Virtue scandal, Innocence a fear, Or from the soft-eyed Virgin steal a tear! But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, 285 Insults fall'n worth, or Beauty in distress, Who loves a Lie, lame slander helps about, Who writes a Libel, or who copies out: That ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... another of your countrymen, last year,' said Dr. W. 'Parker of Boston—Theodore Parker. A man of genius, but I believe a rationalist in religion. He saw but few of our men, and, indeed, we were not disposed to receive him. It would have created a scandal. But he is a very clever man.' After tea, I repaired with the Doctor to his study, and had a pleasant chat with him about American literature. We discussed the merits of Longfellow, Bryant, Irving, Cooper, Channing, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... afterward that we could connive in a sneakish way at his escape. And Sir Walter Carey is Prime Minister of this country, which he would probably never have been if the truth had been told of such a horrible scandal in his department. It might have done for us altogether in Ireland; it would certainly have done for him. And he is my father's old friend, and has always smothered me with kindness. I am too tangled up with the whole thing, you see, and I was certainly ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... until the disgraceful affair has been forgotten and I can absolutely demonstrate that she has developed into some degree of attractiveness. It is better for all concerned that she should leave Morovenia until the present scandal blows over. Now, why not America? It is a remote, half-savage country, and she will be far from the temptations which would beset her at any fashionable capital in Europe. We read in this magazine that all the women ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... adjacent village, or hamlet, where unfortunately he had acquired habits that unsuited him to live as those around him were accustomed to live. He became in a measure alienated from us, drinking, and otherwise living a life that brought great scandal on his sable connections, who were gathered more closely around the homestead. Nevertheless, a death, or a return home, or any important event in the family, was sure to bring even Vulcan back to his allegiance; and, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... and his august companion led during several years. Hunting, riding on horseback, masquerades, private theatricals, satirical verse, improvisation of all sorts, flirtation particularly, filled up day and night, to the scandal of all worthy folk, who were utterly at a loss to account for his serene highness saying "Du" to this Frankfort roturier. The gay Dowager Duchess, Wieland's firm friend, looked upon these juvenile freaks with a more lenient eye; for she ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... New Witness. It was during the latter period that the great test case of political corruption occurred; pretty well known in England, and unfortunately much better known in Europe, as the Marconi scandal. To narrate its alternate secrecies and sensations would be impossible here; but one fashionable fallacy about it may be exploded with advantage. An extraordinary notion still exists that the New Witness denounced ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... in the street it was not enough for him to have occasioned so great a scandal in the quarter where the cauzee lived, but he would have it known through the whole town. I was in such a rage, that I had a great mind to stop and cut his throat; but considering this would have perplexed me farther, I chose another course. Perceiving ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... transferred to the bishops the right of choosing the master. The new arrangement did not work well, for a little more than a century and a half afterwards the master was found to be robbing his charge to such an extent that the scandal was intolerable. William of Wykeham turning his attention to the matter, a Papal Bull was procured ordering the use of the revenues for the benefit of the poor. The next bishop, Cardinal Beaufort, added to the buildings by the foundation of the "Almshouse of Noble Poverty," for the maintenance of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... said I; "to my thinking it is a scandal that our highways should be rendered odious by such horrors, and as wicked as ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... many of which were well-nigh ruinous, to the opposite side of the quadrangle, where, in a subterranean apartment, now occupied by the chemist Alasco, one of the Abbots of Abingdon, who had a turn for the occult sciences, had, much to the scandal of his convent, established a laboratory, in which, like other fools of the period, he spent much precious time, and money besides, in the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... how the other's offspring has given the entrapped one no peace, and how the affair has been the scandal of two separate neighbourhoods, more eligible partners having been lost by ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... his coming campaign. And do not flatter yourself they will not make the best of it. It happens that your father has stood strongly with the Conservation members in the late fight in Congress. This would be a pretty scandal. Third," said Oldham, touching his ring finger, "you are injuring yourself. You are throwing away an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with the biggest man in the West; you are making for yourself a powerful enemy; and you are indubitably preparing ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... Cremieux were utterly at fault and certainly knew it when they declared that Europe was teaching it to Asia. Every Israelite community is bound in self-defence, when the murder of a Christian child or adult is charged upon any of its members, to court the most searching enquiry and to abate the scandal with ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... doesn't know I know it, and mightn't quite like it if they knew I knew it. Also I am pretty sure that they don't want any one else to know it. But under the circumstances I think I'm justified in telling the second person, because it isn't a thing like a scandal, or anything like that. But the difficulty is, that in telling the second person about the first person, I may either have to tell lies, or disclose a secret about a third person, and that is a secret I have promised not to tell. Do you think I ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... the agony of this new terror and the dogged impatience of his old hope. "She'll write. She'll not lave me much longer." But she did not write, and on the second night, before returning to the house from the gate, he had made his plan. He must silence scandal at all hazards. However his own heart might bleed with doubts and fears and misgivings, Philip must never cease to think that Kate was good and ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... machinery, has led to great scandals. Under such laws, whoever first gets possession of the hall at the time named would seem to be the regular candidate. We have, therefore, in Massachusetts, seen the scandal of two groups of men making different nominations in a loud voice at the same time, one at the front of the hall, and the other at the back, and the courts had to decide who was the regular nominee. In the opinion ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... law had been gone through, which took a little time, the Parliament of Paris issued a warrant for the seizure of the abbess, and for her imprisonment in the convent of the Penitents in Paris. On this occasion the abbot took a strong body of archers with him, but wishing to avoid, if possible, the scandal of carrying off the abbess by force, he left them at Pontoise. He went alone to the abbey, and for two days tried by every means he could think of to persuade the abbess to submit. But she only laughed, and declared she was ill, and at last he sent for his archers and ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... fear, nor through misguided sense,— Blind zeal and starving need had some pretence; But for the good old cause, that did excite The original rebels' wiles—revenge and spite. These raise the plot, to have the scandal thrown Upon the bright successor of the crown, 110 Whose virtue with such wrongs they had pursued, As seem'd all hope of pardon to exclude. Thus, while on private ends their zeal is built, The cheated crowd applaud, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden



Words linked to "Scandal" :   malicious gossip, scandalous, skeleton, scuttlebutt, gossip, Teapot Dome scandal, skeleton in the closet, skeleton in the cupboard, Watergate scandal, scandalize, Teapot Dome, Watergate, scandalise, dirt, trouble, comment, outrage



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