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scrutiny

UK/ˈskɹuː.tɪ.ni/US/ˈskɹu.tɪ.ni/
nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,867 of 15,258leans writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Scrutiny is close, detailed inspection with a critical eye. Not a glance — a going-over.

The word usually arrives when somebody is being checked on: under scrutiny, public scrutiny, close scrutiny of the accounts. Parliamentary scrutiny is the formal business of examining what a government is up to. The phrase that does most work is bear scrutiny, because a claim that does not bear scrutiny falls apart the moment anybody looks properly. The verb is scrutinise, which means to look at something very hard indeed.

Definitions of scrutiny

  1. 1nounscrutinyCareful and critical examination.C1

    “The contract did not survive close scrutiny.”

Phrases it lives in

  • bear scrutiny — hold up when examined carefully

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *(s)ker- — to cut

  2. Latin

    scrūta — rubbish, broken trash

  3. Vulgar Latin

    scrūtor — to search or examine thoroughly

  4. Medieval Latin

    scrūtinium — a search, an inquiry

  5. Middle English

    scrutiny

  6. English, today

    scrutiny

From Middle English scrutiny, from Medieval Latin scrūtinium (“a search, an inquiry”), from Vulgar Latin scrūtor (“to search or examine thoroughly”), from Latin scrūta (“rubbish, broken trash”), from an extension of Proto-Indo-European (s)ker- (“to cut”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Academic English, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 35 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

scrutiny in the wild

  • In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the strict scrutiny standard.

    Strict scrutiny

  • The notion of "levels of judicial scrutiny", including strict scrutiny, was introduced in Footnote 4 of the U.S.

    Strict scrutiny

  • The other levels are typically referred to as rational basis review (least rigorous) and strict scrutiny (most rigorous).

    Intermediate scrutiny

  • In 1989, the government conducted a nationwide citizenship scrutiny process to replace NRCs with citizenship scrutiny cards (CSCs) to certify citizenship.

    Myanmar nationality law

  • The case also clarified the level of constitutional scrutiny that should be applied to content-based restrictions on speech.

    Reed v. Town of Gilbert

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the scrūta family

scrutinyscrutinize

scrutiny — used about once every 2,903 pages · #7,867 · point at the bar for the others