skend-
“to leap, climb, spring”Source of Latin scandere, English scan, ascend, descend, scale
Root for leaping upward, producing Latin scandere and English ascend, descend, scan, scale.
Discussion
The PIE root *skend- (to leap, to spring, to climb) produced vocabulary for upward and outward motion — the sudden, energetic movement of jumping, springing, and ascending.
Latin scandere (to climb, to mount, to rise) continues the root and gave English: ascend (ad-scandere, "to climb toward"), descend (dē-scandere, "to climb down"), transcend (trāns-scandere, "to climb across/beyond"), scan (originally to analyse verse by marking the metrical "climbs" — the stressed and unstressed syllables that rise and fall), and the architectural term scansion.
The English word scandal (from Greek skándalon, "a stumbling block, a trap" — possibly from the same root through the image of something that makes you leap/stumble) extends the family into moral vocabulary: a scandal is something that makes the community stumble.
German schinden (to flay, to torment) may be connected through a different semantic path, though the derivation is debated.
Sanskrit skandati ("he leaps, he springs") confirms the Indo-Iranian reflex. The divine name Skanda (the Hindu god of war, who "springs" into battle) deploys the root in theonymy.
The root's most visible English legacy is the ascend/descend/transcend triad — three prefixed forms of the same climbing verb that cover the full range of vertical and metaphorical movement: climbing up (ascend), climbing down (descend), and climbing beyond all limits (transcend).