scruple
noun
1. a unit of apothecary weight equal to 20 grains
Definition categories: quantity
2. uneasiness about the fitness of an action
Similar word(s): misgiving, qualm
Definition categories: feeling, anxiety
3. an ethical or moral principle that inhibits action
Definition categories: thought, principle
Sentences with scruple as a noun:
- He was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes and his scruples. - Thomas Babington Macaulay.
verb
1. hesitate on moral grounds
- The man scrupled to perjure himself
Definition categories: stative, hesitate, pause
2. raise scruples
- He lied and did not even scruple about it
Definition categories: emotion, fret, fuss, niggle
3. have doubts about
Definition categories: communication, question, wonder
Sentences with scruple as a verb:
- We are often over-precise, scrupling to say or do those things which lawfully we may. - Thomas Fuller.Men scruple at the lawfulness of a set form of divine worship. - Robert South.
- Others long before them ... scrupled more the books of hereties than of gentiles. - John Milton.
- I do not scruple to admit that all the Earth seeth but only half of the Moon.
- Letters which did still scruple many of them. -E. Symmons.