scruple

The idea that Saddam would scruple to support al Qaeda seems preposterous even now.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 19, 2025

They were both these outsiders from the boroughs with tremendous life force and ambition with a shared, I think, lack of scruple or ethical core, for whom winning was the only moral measure.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2024

In the chaotic tangle of dust, horseflesh and steel, finding an unexpected advantage was not difficult for those unyoked from scruple.

From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2024

The pontiff lamented the “poverty into which they are often forced, victims of injustice and the inequality of a throwaway society that hurries past without seeing them and without scruple abandons them to their fate.”

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 14, 2021

And he surely would not scruple, even on that day, to be angry at the Lord.

From "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin

Employees in these movies come to the conclusion their boss lacks scruples, boundaries or the qualifications to have the job.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 29, 2025

Theo has misgivings, but his passion for Wynona overrides his scruples.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2025

Some may have otherwise been stolen by Western visitors with less scruples to be sold on the lucrative European and American artefacts market.

From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2024

Executives at established tech giants might have their own honest scruples about where all of this is heading.

From Slate ● Nov. 27, 2023

When he was enraged by some human effort or flaw, he was able to regard himself as discriminating, fastidious, and full of nice scruples.

From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison

Though Antonin fashions himself as a tormented literary protagonist — a scrupled thief and a thwarted artist — he emerges as little more than a posturing, self-pitying millennial unwilling to take charge of his life.

From New York Times ● Jun. 2, 2023

The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay at Mr. Wickham’s charge, exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could bring no proof of its injustice.

From "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

Who asked a rent absurdly high; Who never scrupled at a lie?

From Punch, or the London Charivari, October 28th 1893 by Various

So where they taxed not legally only, but illegally, he scrupled, he held his hand.

From The Abbess Of Vlaye by Stanley J. Weyman

Of old, the favourites of monarchs had not scrupled to owe money to those whom they denounced as dangerous to the State.

From The Passionate Elopement by Compton MacKenzie

By way of vindication, of scrupling it, and suffering upon it.

From A Hind Let Loose Or, An Historical Representation of the Testimonies of the Church of Scotland for the Interest of Christ. With the True State Thereof in All Its Periods by Alexander Shields

She now looked at him as if he were an object, scrupling not to meet his eye with her strange, unwavering gaze.

From A Face Illumined by Edward Payson Roe

Even in the last revision of his early compositions we find him altering passages, which at first sight appear impeccable, with the object of enriching their harmony and without scrupling to use hidden octaves.

From Johann Sebastian Bach by Johann Nikolaus Forkel

Richard Baxter, in the seventeenth century, had said of confirmation that, so far from scrupling the true use of it, there was scarce any outward thing in the Church he valued more highly.

From The English Church in the Eighteenth Century by Charles J. (Charles John) Abbey

On this she laid my meal, not scrupling to set aside some of the snug dry townsfolk.

From The Story of Francis Cludde by Stanley John Weyman