scruple

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An uneasy feeling arising from conscience or principle that tends to hinder action. See Synonyms at qualm.
2. n. A unit of apothecary weight equal to about 1.3 grams, or 20 grains.
3. n. A minute part or amount.
4. v. To hesitate as a result of conscience or principle: "A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket” ( John Dennis).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Perplexity, trouble, or uneasiness of conscience; hesitation or reluctance in acting, arising from inability to satisfy conscience, or from the difficulty of determining what is right or expedient; doubt; backwardness in deciding or acting.
2. To have scruples; be reluctant as regards action or decision; hesitate about doing a thing; doubt; especially, to have conscientious doubts.
3. Synonyms Scruple, Hesitate, Waver. We waver through irresolution, and hesitate through fear, if only the fear of making a mistake. Scruple has tended more and more to limitation to a reluctance produced by doubt as to the right or the propriety of the thing proposed.
4. To have scruples about; doubt; hesitate with regard to; question; especially, to have conscientious doubts concerning: chiefly with an infinitive as object (now the only common use).
5. n. A unit of weight, the third part of a dram, being ounce in apothecaries' weight, where alone it is now used by English-speaking people: this is 20 grains (= 1.296 grams). With the ancient Romans a scruple was ounce or pound (= 1.137 grams), and thence of anything duodecimally subdivided, as a jugerum or acre, a heredium or lot of land, a sextarius or measure of capacity. The scruple is denoted now, as anciently, by the character ə.
6. n. A small fraction. Specifically— One sixtieth; a minute—the expressions first, second, and third scruple being used for the first, second, and third power of one sixtieth.
7. n. Eighteen seconds of time.
8. n. One twelfth of an inch; a line.
9. n. One tenth of a geometrical inch.
10. n. A digit; the twelfth part of the sun's or moon's diameter.
11. n. Hence, figuratively
12. n. A small part; a little of anything, chiefly in negative phrases: sometimes confused with scruple.

Wiktionary

1. n. obsolete A weight of twenty grains; the third part of a dram.
2. n. obsolete Hence, a very small quantity; a particle.
3. n. Hesitation as to action from the difficulty of determining what is right or expedient; unwillingness, doubt, or hesitation proceeding from motives of conscience; to consider if something is ethical.
4. n. obsolete A doubt or uncertainty concerning a matter of fact; intellectual perplexity.
5. n. A measurement of time. Hebrew culture broke the hour into 1080 scruples.
6. v. intransitive To be reluctant or to hesitate, as regards an action, on account of considerations of conscience or expedience.
7. v. To regard with suspicion; to hesitate at; to question.
8. v. obsolete To doubt; to question; to hesitate to believe; to question the truth of (a fact, etc.).
9. v. To excite scruples in; to cause to scruple.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A weight of twenty grains; the third part of a dram.
2. n. Hence, a very small quantity; a particle.
3. n. Hesitation as to action from the difficulty of determining what is right or expedient; unwillingness, doubt, or hesitation proceeding from motives of conscience.
4. v. To be reluctant or to hesitate, as regards an action, on account of considerations of conscience or expedience.
5. v. To regard with suspicion; to hesitate at; to question.
6. v. rare To excite scruples in; to cause to scruple.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. hesitate on moral grounds
2. n. a unit of apothecary weight equal to 20 grains
3. n. an ethical or moral principle that inhibits action
4. v. raise scruples
5. v. have doubts about
6. n. uneasiness about the fitness of an action