scruple
Americannoun
-
a moral or ethical consideration or standard that acts as a restraining force or inhibits certain actions.
- Synonyms:
- restraint, compunction, qualm
-
a very small portion or amount.
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a unit of weight equal to 20 grains (1.295 grams) or 1/3 of a dram, apothecaries' weight.
-
an ancient Roman unit of weight equivalent to 1/24 of an ounce or 1/288 of an as or pound.
verb (used without object)
-
scruples,
present (3rd person singular)
-
scrupled,
past participle, past
-
scrupling
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
scruples,
present (3rd person singular)
-
scrupled,
past participle, past
-
scrupling
present participle
noun
-
(often plural) a doubt or hesitation as to what is morally right in a certain situation
-
archaic a very small amount
-
a unit of weight equal to 20 grains (1.296 grams)
-
an ancient Roman unit of weight equivalent to approximately one twenty-fourth of an ounce
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
scruplesimple
-
scruplessimple
-
have scrupledperfect
-
has scrupledperfect
-
am scruplingprogressive
-
are scruplingprogressive
-
is scruplingprogressive
-
have been scruplingperfect progressive
-
has been scruplingperfect progressive
Past
-
scrupledsimple
-
had scrupledperfect
-
was scruplingprogressive
-
were scruplingprogressive
-
had been scruplingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of scruple
1350–1400; (< French scrupule ) < Latin scrūpulus unit of weight, worry, precaution equivalent to scrūp ( us ) rough pebble + -ulus -ule; replacing earlier scriple, Middle English < Latin scrīpulum (variant scriptulum ) small weight, pebble, alteration of scrūpulus by association with scrīptum writing ( see script; for sense relation cf. gram 1)
Explanation
Your scruples are what keep you from doing things you consider to be morally or ethically wrong. Your scruples won't allow you to cheat on a test, or steal from your brother's Halloween candy stash. The noun scruple comes from a Latin word, scrupulus, which means a small, sharp stone. Some say that the philosopher Cicero first used the word analogously to compare a worry to a small, sharp stone in your shoe that bothers you. From there the word scruple took on the ethical principles meaning. If you are doing something bad, your scruples will bother you — but emptying your shoe probably won't help.
Vocabulary lists containing scruple
Grade 11, List 3
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The Scarlet Letter
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"The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The idea that Saddam would scruple to support al Qaeda seems preposterous even now.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 19, 2025
They were both these outsiders from the boroughs with tremendous life force and ambition with a shared, I think, lack of scruple or ethical core, for whom winning was the only moral measure.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2024
In the chaotic tangle of dust, horseflesh and steel, finding an unexpected advantage was not difficult for those unyoked from scruple.
From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2024
The pontiff lamented the “poverty into which they are often forced, victims of injustice and the inequality of a throwaway society that hurries past without seeing them and without scruple abandons them to their fate.”
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 14, 2021
In manner he was cold and imperious, and he was without scruple in the furtherance of his ambitions.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Employees in these movies come to the conclusion their boss lacks scruples, boundaries or the qualifications to have the job.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 29, 2025
Some may have otherwise been stolen by Western visitors with less scruples to be sold on the lucrative European and American artefacts market.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2024
Executives at established tech giants might have their own honest scruples about where all of this is heading.
From Slate ● Nov. 27, 2023
“But despite the LSBA’s scruples, Boudreaux has still identified some examples of non-germane speech.”
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 15, 2023
“No, I haven’t. I won’t shape them from the air. I’ll form them out of real things. That should satisfy your scruples, Mandy dear.”
From "Ella Enchanted" by Gail Carson Levine
Though Antonin fashions himself as a tormented literary protagonist — a scrupled thief and a thwarted artist — he emerges as little more than a posturing, self-pitying millennial unwilling to take charge of his life.
From New York Times ● Jun. 2, 2023
The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay at Mr. Wickham’s charge, exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could bring no proof of its injustice.
From "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
In politics he was Conservative, but by no means a prejudiced partisan, and he never scrupled to act independently when he deemed it right to do so.
From Norfolk Annals A Chronological Record of Remarkable Events in the Nineteeth Century, Vol. 2 by Charles Mackie
Elizabeth grew restless under it, and Miss Sarah found out from gossiping people that Elizabeth had not scrupled to do what was little short of spying on Alec.
From The Heart's Country by Mary Heaton Vorse
Very rash is he to require my palfrey of me, when he scrupled not to take the sweetness, the beauty and the courtesy with which my demoiselle is endowed.
From Aucassin & Nicolette And Other Mediaeval Romances and Legends by Eugene Mason
Richard Baxter, in the seventeenth century, had said of confirmation that, so far from scrupling the true use of it, there was scarce any outward thing in the Church he valued more highly.
From The English Church in the Eighteenth Century by Charles J. (Charles John) Abbey
With this girl she shared the domestic duties, scrupling not to divide with her the meanest and most rugged, as well as the lightest offices.
From Ormond, Volume I (of 3) or, The Secret Witness by Charles Brockden Brown
"I am so much obliged to you, Mr. Ruggles," said Kate, not scrupling for a moment to take the advantage offered her.
From The American Senator by Anthony Trollope
Even in the last revision of his early compositions we find him altering passages, which at first sight appear impeccable, with the object of enriching their harmony and without scrupling to use hidden octaves.
From Johann Sebastian Bach by Johann Nikolaus Forkel
She now looked at him as if he were an object, scrupling not to meet his eye with her strange, unwavering gaze.
From A Face Illumined by Edward Payson Roe
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
