Shak.
3. Hesitation as to action from the difficulty of determining what is
right or expedient; unwillingness, doubt, or hesitation proceeding from
motives of conscience.
He was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes and his
scruples.
Macaulay.
To make scruple, to hesitate from conscientious motives; to scruple.
Locke.
Scru"ple, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Scrupled (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Scrupling
(?).] To be reluctant or to hesitate, as regards an action, on account
of considerations of conscience or expedience.
We are often over-precise, scrupling to say or do those things
which lawfully we may.
Fuller.
Men scruple at the lawfulness of a set form of divine worship.
South.
Scru"ple, v. t. 1. To regard with suspicion; to hesitate at; to
question.
Others long before them . . . scrupled more the books of heretics
than of gentiles.
Milton.