All 3 Uses
scruples
in
The Screwtape Letters
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- We have quite removed from men's minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials—namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples.†
Chpt 16 *
- We have quite removed from men's minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials—namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples.†
Chpt 16
- How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell—though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express—no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise—Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires.†
Chpt 22
Definitions:
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(1)
(scruples) principles that discourage certain kinds of action
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(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Much more rarely, scruple can be used as a verb meaning "hesitate on moral grounds" as in "He lied and did not even scruple about it."
Even more rarely and archaically, at one time a scruple was a measure of weight equal to 20 grains (about 1.3 grams).