Other forms: scruples
A scruple is a moral doubt that stops you doing something. Have no scruples, moral scruples, without scruple.
The Latin is a small sharp stone, of the kind that gets into a sandal and cannot be ignored, which is exactly what a scruple does to a conscience. It is nearly always plural now.
1nounscrupleA moral doubt that stops you doing something.
“She felt a scruple about taking the money, since she hadn't really earned it.”
scruple is a doubt.
Latin scrupulus means a small sharp stone, and hence a nagging unease.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)ker- (cut)
Proto-Indo-European
*ksew-
Ancient Greek
σκύρος — the chippings of stone
Old French
scrupule
English, today
scruple
Built from
From Old French scrupule, from Latin scrūpulus (“literally a small sharp or pointed stone; uneasiness of mind, anxiety, doubt, trouble; scruple”) and scrūpulum (“one twenty-fourth of an ounce”), of scrūpus (“a rough or sharp stone; anxiety, uneasiness”); perhaps akin to Ancient Greek σκύρος (“the chippings of stone”), from ξυρόν (“razor”), from ξύω (“to scrape”), from Proto-Indo-European ksew-. a doublet of escropulo and escrupulo.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA