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balk: balk: [OE] There are two separate strands of meaning in balk, or baulk, as it is also spelled. When it first entered English in the 9th century, from Old Norse bálkr, it meant a ‘ridge of land, especially one between ploughed furrows’, from which the modern sense ‘stumbling block, obstruction’ developed. It is not until about 1300 that the meaning ‘beam of timber’ appears in English, although it was an established sense of the Old Norse word’s Germanic ancestor *balkon (source also of English balcony).

The common element of meaning in these two strands is something like ‘bar’, which may have been present in the word’s ultimate Indo- European base *bhalg- (possible source of Greek phálagx ‘log, phalanx’).
=> balcony, phalanx
scandal: scandal: [16] Greek skándalon originally meant literally ‘trap’ (it came from prehistoric Indo- European *skand- ‘jump’, which also produced Latin scandere ‘climb’, source of English ascend, descend, and scan). It was extended metaphorically to ‘snare for the unwary, stumbling block’, and passed into late Latin as scandalum, which was used for ‘cause of offence’. It came down to Old French as escandle, which was not only the source of a short-lived Middle English scandle, but also lies behind English slander. It was the later French form scandale that gave English scandal.
=> ascend, descend, scan, slander
scan (v.): late 14c., "mark off verse in metric feet," from Late Latin scandere "to scan verse," originally, in classical Latin, "to climb, rise, mount" (the connecting notion is of the rising and falling rhythm of poetry), from PIE *skand- "to spring, leap, climb" (cognates: Sanskrit skandati "hastens, leaps, jumps;" Greek skandalon "stumbling block;" Middle Irish sescaind "he sprang, jumped," sceinm "a bound, jump").

Missing -d in English is probably from confusion with suffix -ed (see lawn (n.1)). Sense of "look at closely, examine minutely (as one does when counting metrical feet in poetry)" first recorded 1540s. The (opposite) sense of "look over quickly, skim" is first attested 1926. Related: Scanned; scanning.
scandal (n.): 1580s, "discredit caused by irreligious conduct," from Middle French scandale (12c.), from Late Latin scandalum "cause for offense, stumbling block, temptation," from Greek skandalon "a trap or snare laid for an enemy," in New Testament, metaphorically as "a stumbling block, offense;" originally "trap with a springing device," from PIE *skand- "to leap, climb" (see scan (v.); also see slander (n.), which is another form of the same word).

Attested from early 13c., but the modern word likely is a reborrowing. Meaning "malicious gossip," also "shameful action or event" is from 1590s; sense of "person whose conduct is a disgrace" is from 1630s. Scandal sheet "sensational newspaper" is from 1939. Scandal-monger is from 1702.
slander (n.): late 13c., "state of impaired reputation, disgrace or dishonor;" c. 1300, "a false tale; the fabrication and dissemination of false tales," from Anglo-French esclaundre, Old French esclandre "scandalous statement," alteration ("with interloping l" [Century Dictionary]) of escandle, escandre "scandal," from Latin scandalum "cause of offense, stumbling block, temptation" (see scandal). From late 14c. as "bad situation, evil action; a person causing such a state of affairs."
stumble (v.): c. 1300, "to trip or miss one's footing" (physically or morally), probably from a Scandinavian source (compare dialectal Norwegian stumla, Swedish stambla "to stumble"), probably from a variant of the Proto-Germanic base *stam-, source of Old English stamerian "to stammer," German stumm, Dutch stom "dumb, silent." Possibly influenced in form by stumpen "to stumble," but the -b- may be purely euphonious. Meaning "to come (upon) by chance" is attested from 1550s. Related: Stumbled; stumbling. Stumbling-block first recorded 1526 (Tindale), used in Rom. xiv:13, where usually it translates Greek skandalon.
stumble (n.): 1540s, "act of stumbling," from stumble (v.). Meaning "a failure, false step" is from 1640s.