scruple

Definition

Hesitation to act from the difficulty of determining what is right or expedient; doubt, hesitation or unwillingness due to motives of conscience; moral qualm.

Etymology

From Old French scrupule, from Latin scrūpulus (“(literally) a small sharp or pointed stone; uneasiness of mind, anxiety, doubt, trouble; scruple”) and scrūpulum (“one twenty-fourth of an ounce”), diminutives of scrūpus (“a rough or sharp stone; anxiety, uneasiness”); perhaps akin to Ancient Greek σκύρος (skúros, “the chippings of stone”), from ξυρόν (xurón, “razor”), from ξύω (xúō, “to scrape”), from Proto-Indo-European *ksew-. Doublet of escropulo and escrupulo.

Example Sentences

• "Before her flew Affliction, girt in ſtorms, / Gaſht all with guſhing wounds; and all the formes / Of bane, and miſerie, frowning in her face; / Whom Tyrannie, and Iniuſtice, had in Chace; / Grimme Perſecution, Pouertie, and Shame; / Detraction, Enuie, foule Mishap and lame; / Scruple of Conſcience; Feare, Deceipt, Deſpaire; / Slaunder, and Clamor, that rent all the Ayre; […]"
• "[U]ntil the Commonwealth [of England] torture was constantly used as an instrument of evidence in the investigation of offences, whether municipal or political, without scruple, and without question as to its legality."
• "The four chief sins of which he was guilty were dancing, ringing the bells of the parish church, playing at tipcat, and reading the History of Sir Bevis of Southampton. A Rector of the school of [William] Laud would have held such a young man up to the whole parish as a model. But [John] Bunyan's notions of good and evil had been learned in a very different school; and he was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes and his scruples."