Scrupulous

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈskɹuː.pjə.ləs/

Definitions

  1. Extremely careful about doing what is morally right and paying close attention to every detail
  2. characterized by meticulous attention to moral principles and precise adherence to ethical standards in all matters
  3. demonstrating careful diligence combined with strict moral integrity and unwavering commitment to doing what is right

Etymology: Every scrupulous person is carrying a stone. In Latin, "scrupus" was a sharp, jagged rock, and its diminutive "scrupulus" was a tiny one: the kind of pebble that is too small to see and too sharp to ignore. The Romans turned that pebble inward. "Scrupulus" came to mean a prick of unease, a nagging doubt that will not let the mind rest, and Cicero used it for exactly that kind of worry. The same small stone also became a measure: "scrupulum" was the smallest common Roman weight, one twenty-fourth of an ounce. That sense survived for centuries in the apothecary's "scruple" of twenty grains, so for most of its history English has had two scruples, one weighed in medicines and one felt in the conscience. From "scrupulus" Latin built the adjective "scrupulosus," meaning careful, exact, precise, someone who notices the smallest grain of anything. It passed into French as "scrupuleux," and English took it in the mid-1400s. At first it leaned toward the troubled side of the image: prone to doubt, hesitant, anxious. Christian moral teaching kept that anxious side sharp. Confessors used "scrupulosity" for an affliction in which every small act might be a sin. Ignatius of Loyola, who suffered from it himself, wrote counsel on scruples for his Spiritual Exercises. Over time the word's center of gravity shifted from the person tormented by doubt to the person who simply takes great care, above all about what is right. Its negative partner arrived surprisingly late. "Unscrupulous" does not appear until around 1800, as though English needed three and a half centuries of conscience-pebbles before it bothered to name the people who walk without one.

Synonyms: meticulous, ethical, conscientious

Antonyms: careless, unethical