Word Finder - scruple

definition

A weight of 1/288 of a pound, that is, twenty grains or one third of a dram, about 1.3 grams (symbol: ℈).

synonyms

• s.ap.

definition

(by extension) A very small quantity; a particle.

definition

A doubt or uncertainty concerning a matter of fact; intellectual perplexity.

definition

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

definition

A Hebrew unit of time equal to 1/1080 hour.

definition

To hesitate or be reluctant to act due to considerations of conscience or expedience.

definition

To excite scruples in; to cause to scruple.

definition

To regard with suspicion; to question.

definition

To question the truth of (a fact, etc.); to doubt; to hesitate to believe, to question.

example

I do not scruple to admit that all the Earth seeth but only half of the Moon.

Where he detects or suspects the insertion of fabulous matter he has no scruple in saying so.

The civil war that followed his death, the endless revolutions of Agrigentum, where the weaker side did not scruple to call in Christian help, hindered any real Saracen occupation of eastern Sicily.

I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely well.

Slaves did the greater part of the purchasing, though even the noblest citizens of Athens did not scruple to buy and sell there.

He did not scruple to reveal to the king of Navarre secret deliberations, but his fortune soon turned.

At the same time he had no scruple about borrowing from predecessors or contemporaries; in fact he did so in the most open manner.

Some of the actors were mad with jealousy, and did not scruple to tell him that.

Apart from the lack of scruple manifested by Giolitti in the bank scandals, he exhibited incompetence in the conduct of foreign and home affairs.

But, with a scruple which illustrated his character, he refused government nomination from Mole, and was defeated.

A husband claims his wife as his absolute property, but he has no scruple in handing her over for a time to another man.

This was to be but the first of many disappointments in this direction; there was apparently some fatal scruple, both in Henrys own mind and in that of his continental subjects, as to pressing their suzerain too hard.

To procure this, we certainly ought not to scruple to give liberal conditions.

I should have less scruple in troubling you if I had any confidence what my work would turn out.

They that have an ill end will not scruple at an ill way.

So well were these troops organized that they were able to hold their own against rebellious Janissaries in the European provinces, where disaffected governors made no scruple of attempting to make use of them against the reforming sultan.

It was a step characteristic of his love for extreme and dramatic action, but it added to the dissensions between him and those who wished only for autonomy under the old dynasty, and his enemies did not scruple to accuse him of aiming at the crown himself.

This was in many cases true, and it is equally true that Mozart and Haydn often had no scruple in following the customs of very bad composers.

His cruelty, his utter want of scruple, and his good fortune made him a terror to all Italy.

All political authority was in the hands of turbulent nobles who quarrelled among themselves, who were always inclined to submit the questions at issue to the arbitrament of arms, and who did not scruple to invite foreign powers to intervene on their behalf.

The author's official position gave him access to the state papers and to other authentic sources not attainable by other writers, while he did not scruple to borrow largely from other MSS., especially from that of Bartolome de Las Casas.

The Epicurean had no scruple about the servitude of those whose labours contributed to his own indulgence and tranquillity.

In Austria the army was now supreme, and the appointment of Prince Felix Schwarzenberg as head of the government was a guarantee that its power would be used in a reactionary F sense without weakness or scruple.

Moreover the scruple as to the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton seems to have arisen earlier, as in the LXX.

The former scruple, however, was not confined to Paulicians, for it inspires the answer made by Eusebius, bishop of Thessalonica, to the emperor Maurice, when the latter asked to have relics sent to him of Demetrius the patron saint of that city.

A little before this Gregory V., at the end of 996, had been compelled to flee from' the city; and the wily and ambitious Greek had now no scruple in accepting the papal tiara from the hands of Crescentius.

He did not scruple, for instance, to strike out of the lists of witnesses to medieval charters, before publishing them, the names of families which he disliked.

In 1680 he was elected president of the society, but declined the honour from a scruple about oaths.

He had, moreover, had no part in the divorce of Catherine or in the humiliation of Mary in Henry's reign, and he made no scruple about conforming to the religious reaction.

The least respected legislatures are those of the richest and most populous states, such as New York and Pennsylvania, because in such states the opportunities offered to persons devoid of scruple are the largest.

Fouillee (q.v.) rightly objects that we must not thus impute thought and intention to Nature, and yet does not scruple to impute to it life, sensation and want.

This scruple was, however, not shared by his successor, Gregory XV., who secured GregoryXV., the consent of the powers to the occupation of the 1621-1623.

In the conduct and detection of her correspondence with Babington, traitor was played off against traitor, and spies were utilized against assassins, with as little scruple as could be required or expected in the diplomacy of the time.

Upon Hobbes himself the publication came as a surprise, but, after his plain speaking in Leviathan, there was nothing in the piece that he need scruple to have made known, and he seems to have condoned the act.

In the ambition of the spiritual and the secular princes the pope had an immensely powerful engine of offence against the emperor, and without the slightest scruple this was turned to the best advantage.

The first representative of the movement in parliament was Herr von Schdnerer, who did not scruple to declare that the Germans looked forward to union with the German empire.

Taught by experience and adversity, they did not scruple to enter into an ministry, alliance with their old enemies, and a coalition ministry 1893' was formed from the Left, the Clericals and the Poles.

The kingdom was harassed almost incessantly, and more than once partitioned,by pretenders to the throne, who did not scruple to invoke the interference of the neighbouring monarchs, and even of the heathen Wends, who established themselves for a time on the southern islands.

His industry, his remarkable political insight, his lack of scruple, and his combined strength of will and subtlety of intellect enabled him to utilize all the forces which tended at that time towards strong government throughout western Europe.

It is possible, too, that, as the states did not scruple to take advantage of the difficulties of their rivals, Assyria played a more prominent part in keeping these jealousies alive than the evidence actually states.

But when Fabre substituted dead individuals of her own species or live larvae of another genus, the Osmia had no scruple in destroying them, so as to bite her way out to air and liberty.

Philip's policy of building up a strong monarchy was pursued with a steadiness of aim which excluded both enthusiasm and scruple.

But he seems to have prided himself on a certain humanity, or even generosity of temper, which led him to avoid putting his enemies to death, though he did not scruple to condemn Renaud of Dammartin to the most inhuman of imprisonments.

The same scruple against flesh-eating is conveyed in the beautiful confession, in the Cretans of Euripides, of one who had been initiated in the mysteries of Orpheus and became a "Bacchos."

In acting thus he did not scruple to desert his own royalist followers, and to repudiate and abandon the great and noble Montrose, whose heroic efforts he was apparently merely using in order to extort better terms from the covenanters, and who, having been captured on the 4th of May, was executed on the 21st in spite of some attempts by Charles to procure for him an indemnity.

But, once free, he had no scruple in cheating the imperial brigand of his blackmail.

The author believed that everything he wrote was in full accordance with the mind of Moses, and would contribute to the national weal of Yahweh's covenant people, and therefore he did not scruple to represent Moses as the speaker.

The first work which he edited was the Anthologia Graeca or Analecta veterum Poetarum Graecorum (1772-1776), in which his innovations on the established mode of criticism startled European scholars; for wherever it seemed to him that an obscure or difficult passage might be made intelligible and easy by a change of text, he did not scruple to make the necessary alterations, whether the new reading were supported by manuscript authority or not.

The theologians whom Louis the Pious convened at Paris in 825, to answer the letter received from the iconoclast emperor Michael Balbus, were as hostile to the orthodox Greeks as to the image-worshippers, and did not scruple to censure Pope Adrian for having approved of the empress Irene's attitude.

Such being the nature of the man, it is not astonishing that, as his ardour for Isotta increased, he should have little scruple in ridding himself of his second wife.

Hence they had no scruple about rooting out the old Irish from Ulster.