Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Conscientious and exact; painstaking. synonym: meticulous.
  • adjective Having scruples; principled.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Inclined to scruple; hesitating to determine or to act; cautious from a fear of erring; especially, having scruples of conscience.
  • Given to making objections; captious.
  • Nice; doubtful.
  • Exact; precise; rigorous; punctilious.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Full of scruples; inclined to scruple; nicely doubtful; hesitating to determine or to act, from a fear of offending or of doing wrong.
  • adjective Careful; cautious; exact; nice.
  • adjective obsolete Given to making objections; captious.
  • adjective obsolete Liable to be doubted; doubtful; nice.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Exactly and carefully conducted.
  • adjective Having scruples or compunctions.
  • adjective Precise; exact or strict

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective having scruples; arising from a sense of right and wrong; principled
  • adjective characterized by extreme care and great effort

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French scrupuleux, from Latin scrūpulōsus, from scrūpulus, scruple; see scruple.]

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Examples

  • 'I know you, my dear Mandlebert, to be, by nature, penetrating and minute in your observations; which, in your general commerce with the world, will protect both your understanding and your affections from the usual snares of youth: But here – to be even scrupulous is not enough; to avoid all danger of repentance, you must become positively distrustful.'

    Camilla: or, A Picture of Youth 1796

  • I decided to go once every two or three weeks don't want to be "scrupulous"--something we were warned against in RCIA, but I still don't really know what I'm doing.

    But God loves me anyway, right? (Now with footnotes!) 2009

  • If Bronner's reporting had been genuinely "scrupulous" - that is, informed, accurate, and unbiased-almost surely his family ties with Israel would never have become an issue, and it would not be necessary to distinguish between real and merely "imaginary or hypothetical" conflicts of interest (in Keller's words).

    Palestine Blogs aggregator 2010

  • Years afterwards I spent a night in an Orthodox Monastery in Russia, when I regretfully recalled the scrupulous cleanliness of La

    The Days Before Yesterday Frederick Spencer Hamilton 1892

  • Vanasek was uniformly described as a scrupulous, old-school credit officer who was troubled by WaMu's looser approach to lending.

    The Seattle Times 2010

  • Vanasek was uniformly described as a scrupulous, old-school credit officer who was troubled by WaMu's looser approach to lending.

    The Seattle Times 2010

  • Vanasek was uniformly described as a scrupulous, old-school credit officer who was troubled by WaMu's looser approach to lending.

    The Seattle Times 2010

  • Vanasek was uniformly described as a scrupulous, old-school credit officer who was troubled by WaMu's looser approach to lending.

    The Seattle Times 2010

  • Ford, famously known as a scrupulous fashion designer, has repeatedly said that

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed 2009

  • But aides said they were merely trying to protect the people of Florida who, despite the campaign's "scrupulous" refusal to campaign in the state, showed up to vote for Clinton anyway.

    Easter Lemming Liberal News 2008

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