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

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

“Nevertheless, the State’s capacity to legislate pursuant to its own moral scruples is necessarily curbed by the Kansas Constitution and its Bill of Rights.”

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 30, 2023

“He who throws away his power is filled sometimes with a far greater power,” she said, smiling, as if his fears and scruples were childish ones.

From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin

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

On the contrary, they seemed disposed to make advances to the daring, conquering people, who had not scrupled to seize their chief and keep him confined—they, a mere handful of people amongst thousands.

From One Maid's Mischief by George Manville Fenn

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 excusing his conduct in Vienna, he scrupled not to declare loudly that Beethoven owed him four hundred ducats, and that he had been obliged to take that work in payment.

From Life of Beethoven by Anton Schindler

Enterprising reporters, aided by official leaking somewhere, obtained possession of considerable facts, including the prisoner's arrest and statement, before two o'clock, and the afternoon journals promptly published them, not scrupling to add various imaginary embellishments.

From In Friendship's Guise by William Murray Graydon

I will not reason here—nor will I stop for YOU to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than absurdity, of scrupling to engage my faith where my honour was already bound.

From Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Insomuch that, finding himself discountenanced on those accounts by the then Warden of Wadham, he shifted colledges to Trinity, and, when there, went away without his degree, scrupling, forsooth, the Subscription then required.

From Andrew Marvell by John Morley

Brutal force has hitherto governed the world, and that the science of politics is in its infancy, is evident from philosophers scrupling to give the knowledge most useful to man that determinate distinction.

From Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft

"His father died a short time since and left him in my care," said the squire, not scrupling to make a misstatement.

From The Young Musician ; Or, Fighting His Way by Horatio Alger