SCRUPLES • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Scruples

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/skrˈupəlz/ Listen

Scruples

noun

Motivation deriving logically from ethical or moral principles that govern a person's thoughts and actions. Synonyms: conscience, moral sense, sense of right and wrong.

Scruple

noun

A unit of apothecary weight equal to 20 grains.

Uneasiness about the fitness of an action. Synonyms: misgiving, qualm.

An ethical or moral principle that inhibits action.

verb

(past & past part. scrupled; pres. part. scrupling)

Hesitate on moral grounds.

Raise scruples.

Have doubts about.

See images of 'Scruples'

Etymology of 'Scruples'

Share |

"Scruples" Quotes from Famous Books

... scruples are perfectly ridiculous. I'm not asking Callaghan to report to me Miss King's private conversations, or to read her letters, or anything of that sort. I merely want to know whether Simpkins kisses her. There's ...

— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... arts. The end must justify the means, and any means may be employed which will add to the strength of the State. It is the glory of Frederick the Great that he has always had the moral courage of brushing away conventions and scruples to achieve his object, and that he has always had the political insight and wisdom of adjusting the means ...

— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... neighbor, finding him in this low state, "why don't you get a horse of the gentleman who furnishes mine?" This had been suggested before, and my friend explained that he had disliked to make trouble. His scruples were lightly set aside, and he suffered himself to be entreated. The fact was he was so discouraged with his attempt to buy a horse that if any one had now given him such a horse as he wanted ...

— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells

... with complacency to a scheme, which promised an ample source of revenue in the confiscations it involved. But it was not so easy to vanquish Isabella's aversion to measures so repugnant to the natural benevolence and magnanimity of her character. Her scruples, indeed, were rather founded on sentiment than reason, the exercise of which was little countenanced in matters of faith, in that day, when the dangerous maxim, that the end justifies the means, was universally received, and learned theologians seriously disputed whether ...

— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... rebels, Hyde and Johnson, were pleased with the plan, for it looked like an adventure. The persuasions of Lindsley induced them to yield whatever scruples they had. It would be a rich thing to have the principal or the officers come down into the steerage, and find it empty. There was still a chance to make the principal do something, even if it were only to call them up for punishment; for ...

— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

More quotes...