SCRUPLE

scruple

Noun

  1. A weight of twenty grains; the third part of a dram.
  2. Hence, a very small quantity; a particle.
  3. Hesitation as to action from the difficulty of determining what is right or expedient; unwillingness, doubt, or hesitation proceeding from motives of conscience.
    He was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes and his scruples. - .
  4. A doubt or uncertainty concerning a matter of fact; intellectual perplexity.
  5. A measurement of time. Hebrew culture broke the hour into 1080 scruples.

Verb

  1. To be reluctant or to hesitate, as regards an action, on account of considerations of conscience or expedience.
    We are often over-precise, scrupling to say or do those things which lawfully we may. - .
    Men scruple at the lawfulness of a set form of divine worship. - .
  2. To regard with suspicion; to hesitate at; to question.
    Others long before them ... scrupled more the books of hereties than of gentiles. - .
  3. To doubt; to question; to hesitate to believe; to question the truth of (a fact, etc.).
    I do not scruple to admit that all the Earth seeth but only half of the Moon.
  4. To excite scruples in; to cause to scruple.
    Letters which did still scruple many of them. -E. Symmons.


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