scruple
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈskruːpəl/
- Archaic
:
escrúpulo (unidad de peso antigua)
- What struck me most was a quality of professionalism, of decent scruple in matters of both fact and opinion without loss of readability.
Examples
-
For this was not just any dream, but THE dream, the one maintained in Plato's celestial Bureau of Standards, alongside the inch and the scruple.
Fiction book (1997) -
If you are, I have no scruple in asking you to take Anne to her door.
-
Do you think Ambassador Kennedy would recognize a scruple if he fell over it, Max?
Blog text (27) -
Without scruple, I clogged my staves with others' notes.
Fiction book (1995) -
He has a scruple against active service in opposition to Frenchmen.
Blog text (1) -
Certainly, I felt no scruple at having struck the first blow—it had come to me by inspiration.
Fiction book (1991) -
If you take more or less than a just pound be it but so much as makes it light or heavy in the substance or division of the twentieth part of one poor scruple, nay, if the scale do turn but in the estimation of a hair, you die and all your goods are confiscate.
-
Mitt Romney is a candidate for the very corporations that dragged us into this financial debacle with their scruple-less greed.
Blog text (19) -
Addison derided those who "think it more honorable to revenge than to forgive an injury; who make no scruple of telling a lie, but would put any man to death that accuses them of it; who are more careful to guard their reputation by their courage than by their virtue."
Academic text (2009) -
The pharmacist carefully measured the powder, ensuring it was exactly scruple for each prescription.
Surface Forms
Etymology
Scruple was once the name for a very small weight used in old pharmacy. It comes from the Latin scrupulus meaning 'small sharp stone', and people used the idea of a 'tiny pebble' to name a very small measure, so a scruple is a tiny amount.