Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definitions: Scrupulous |
ScrupulousAdjective1. Having scruples; arising from a sense of right and wrong; principled; "less scrupulous producers sent bundles that were deceptive in appearance". 2. Characterized by extreme care and great effort; "conscientious application to the work at hand"; "painstaking research"; "scrupulous attention to details". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "scrupulous" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1350. (references) |
Etymology: Scrupulous \Scru"pu*lous\, adjective. [Latin expression scrupulosus: compare to the French expression scrupuleux.]. (Websters 1913) |
Synonyms: ScrupulousSynonyms: conscientious (adj), painstaking (adj). (additional references) |
| Antonym: unscrupulous (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Care | Tidy; (orderly), (clean); accurate; (exact); scrupulous; (conscientious); cavendo tutus; (safe). |
Fastidiousness | Adjective: fastidious, nice, delicate, delicat, finical, finicky, demanding, meticulous, exacting, strict, anal, difficult, dainty, lickerish, squeamish, thin-skinned; squeasy, queasy; hard to please, difficult to please; querulous, particular, straitlaced, scrupulous; censorious; hypercritical; overcritical. |
Incredulity | Adjective: incredulous, skeptical, unbelieving, inconvincible; hard of belief, shy of belief, disposed to doubt, indisposed to believe; suspicious, scrupulous, distrustful, cynical; |
Probity | Conscientious, tender-conscienced, right-minded; high-principled, high-minded; scrupulous, religious, strict; nice, punctilious, correct, punctual; respectable, reputable; gentlemanlike. |
Truth | Exact, accurate, definite, precise, well-defined, just, just so, so; strict, severe; close; (similar); literal; rigid, rigorous; scrupulous; (conscientious); religiously exact, punctual, mathematical, scientific; faithful, constant, unerring; curious, particular, nice, delicate, fine; clean-cut, clear-cut. |
Unwillingness | Adjective: unwilling; not in the vein, loth, loath, shy of, disinclined, indisposed, averse, reluctant, not content; adverse; (opposed); laggard, backward, remiss, slack, slow to; indifferent; scrupulous; squeamish; (fastidious); repugnant; (dislike); restiff, restive; demurring; Verb: unconsenting; (refusing); involuntary. |
Veracity | Adjective: truthful, true; veracious, veridical; scrupulous; (honorable); sincere, candid, frank, open, straightforward, unreserved; open hearted, true hearted, simple-hearted; honest, trustworthy; undissembling; (dissemble; ); guileless, pure; truth-loving; unperjured; true blue, as good as one's word; unaffected, unfeigned, bona fide; outspoken, ingenuous; (artless); undisguised; (real). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Scrupulous |
| English words defined with "scrupulous": formalism ♦ Overscrupulous ♦ religious ♦ Squesy. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "scrupulous": Squesy. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I assure you, Mrs. Buttle, the Ministry is very scrupulous about following up and eradicating any error. (Brazil; writing credit: Terry Gilliam; Charles McKeown) Uh, I mean shut up, you scrupulous ignoramus! (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; writing credit: Kevin Eastman; Peter Laird) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Play | Caption |
| Drumming; drum; beating; methodical; analytical; businesslike; careful; deliberate; disciplined; exact; fixed; framed; methodic; methodized; meticulous; neat; ordered; orderly; planned; precise; regular; scrupulous; set up; structured; systematic; tidy; t. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Thomas Jefferson | Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
John Locke | 1690 | This power, whilst employed for the benefit of the community, and suitably to the trust and ends of the government, is undoubted prerogative, and never is questioned: for the people are very seldom or never scrupulous or nice in the point; they are far from examining prerogative, whilst it is in any tolerable degree employed for the use it was meant, that is, for the good of the people, and not manifestly against it: but if there comes to be a question between the executive power and the people, about a thing claimed as a prerogative; the tendency of the exercise of such prerogative to the good or hurt of the people, will easily decide that question. (Second Treatise of Government) |
Treaty of Versailles | 1919 | THE HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES, In order to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war by the prescription of open, just and honourable relations between nations by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among Governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations in the dealings of organised peoples with one another Agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Sylvie and Bruno | Carroll, Lewis | I took her up with scrupulous care, and her little arm was at once clasped trustfully round my neck. |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | His confession became a channel for the escape of scrupulous and unrepented imperfections. |
Gulliver's Travels | Swift, Jonathan | But as to counts, marquesses, dukes, earls, and the like, I was not so scrupulous. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Andrew Jackson | 1829-1837 | Under such an arrangement every branch of this important service would assume a more simple and precise character, its efficiency would be increased, and scrupulous economy in the expenditure of public money promoted. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Scrupulous" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Scrupulous" is used about 136 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 100% | 136 | 27,260 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "scrupulous": over-scrupulous. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
scrupulous | 6 |
anonymous scrupulous | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "scrupulous"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Afrikaan | angsvallig (accurate). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | i përpiktë (exact, neat, orderly, painstaking, precise, punctilious, right), i ndershëm (clean, clean-living, disinterested, fair, fair and square, fair dealing, guileless, honest, honorable, honourable, incorrupt, on the level, sportsmanlike, stainless, straightforward, whole-souled), i ndërgjegjshëm (alive, conscientious, mindful, ware). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | كثير الشكوك, كثي الوسواس, مدقق (exact, inspected, investigated, pedantic, scanned, scrutinized), دقيق (accurate, careful, close, delicate, elaborate, exact, express, farina, fine, flour, inappreciable, infinitesimal, intangible, just, keen, mathematical, meal, nearness, nice, painstaking, particular, pernickety, precise, punctilious, punctual, rigorous, searching, sharp, sound, specific, straightforward, strict, ticklish, tiny, touchy, tricky, true, veracious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | съвестен (conscientious), съзнателен (advised, conscious, deliberate, intentional, knowing, premeditated, sentient, voluntary), щателен (minute, narrow, painstaking, searching, severe), коректен (correct, precise, regular), внимателен (affable, alert, attentive, careful, cautious, circumspect, considerate, delicate, guarded, heedful, intent, nice, precautious, thoughtful, ware, wary, watchful), педантично честен, педантично коректен, добросъвестен (conscientious, earnest, upright). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 一丝不苟. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | svìdomitý (conscientious, dutiful, religious, thorough), puntièkářský (hairsplitting, meticulous, pedantic, precise, priggish, punctilious), poctivost (honesty, rightness). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dutch | scrupuleus (accurate), angstvallig (accurate). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | skrupula. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | محتاط (Cautious, Chary, Considerate, Demure, Gingerly), ناشی ازوسواس یادقت زیاد, وسواسی (Meticulous, Morose, Queasy, Whimsical). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | tunnontarkka (conscientious), tunnonrauha (conscientious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | scrupuleux, méticuleux. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frisian | skrutel (accurate). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | skrupulös (accurate). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | ευσυνείδητοσ (conscientious, conscionable, self conscious), λεπτολόγοσ (caviller, discriminating, finicky, meticulous, particular, pernickety, prim, squeamish), ακριβολόγοσ (nice, precisian, precisionist, punctilious, purist). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | מוקפ" (meticulous), "ק"ק י (meticulous, prim, punctilious), בעל מצפון (conscientious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | lelkiismeretes (conscientious, earnest, painstaking, religious), aggályoskodó (meticulous, religious). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | cermat (accurate, careful, neat, precise). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | scrupoloso (nice, punctilious), meticoloso (captious, carping, correct, fastidious, finickly, fussy, meticulous, nagging, particular, pedantic, punctilious), coscienzioso (conscientious, earnest, painstaking). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 謹直 (conscientious), 綿密 (careful, detailed, minute, thorough), 細心 (careful, discrete, prudent), 入念 (careful, elaborate), 周密 (careful, meticulous), 周到 (careful, meticulous), 念入り (careful, conscientious, thorough). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | しゅうみつ (careful, meticulous), しゅうとう (careful, meticulous), ね"いり (careful, conscientious, thorough), き"ちょく (conscientious), さいし" (careful, discrete, enshrined deity, latest, newest, prudent, reexamination, retrial, review), にゅうね" (careful, elaborate), め"みつ (careful, detailed, minute, thorough). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 꼼꼼한. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | mynchooishagh (particular, pernickety, petty-minded, punctilious), imneagh (anxious, concerned, nervous, uneasy, worried), cruinn (accurate, circular, circumstantial, compact, consummate, detailed, exact, round, spherical, strict, unambigous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | upulousscray minucioso (curious, hairspray, minute, narrow, niggling, particular, perorate, rigorous, searching, thorough), meticuloso (careful, finical, finicky, meticulous, painstaking, picnic, punctilious, thorough), exato (accurate, anchored, clean-cut, clean-fingered, clock-work, close, correct, definite, determinate, even, exact, faithfully, incorrupt, just a minute please, literal, mathematical, pinpoint, precise, precision, prompt, proper, punctual, rigourous, sharp, stringent, trustworthy, truthful, unerring, well-defined), escrupuloso (believer, clean-cut, clock-work, precisely, preclude, well-defined), cuidadoso (accurate, attentive, careful, chary, close, convinced, earnest, exact, gingerly, heedful, mature, metier, mindful, painstaking, regardful, safe, solicitous, thorough, tidy, tiptoe), consciencioso (believer, conscientious, thoroughgoing). (various references) susceptibil (difficult, huffish, in, irascible, petulaht, sensitive, spiky, susceptible, testy, ticklish, touchy), supãrãcios (cantankerous, cross-grained, huffish, huffy, humoursome, irascible, irritable, liveried, peevish, pettish, short tempered, sour, testy, tetchy, touchy), sensibil (appreciably, considerable, considerably, delicate, feeling, impressible, impressionable, marked, noticeably, painful, palpable, passible, responsive, sensible, sensitive, sentient, susceptible, tangible, tender, thin-skinned, touchy), scrupulos (careful, conscientious, finical, nice, particular, punctilious, qualmish, queasy, religious, scrupulously, thorough), migãlos (careful, finical, niggling, painstaking, painstakingly, precise, scrupulously), meticulos (carefully, curious, meticulous, meticulously), conştiincios (careful, conscientious, conscientiously, duteous, dutiful, scrupulously, thorough), cinstit (above board, candid, chaste, clean-fingered, correctly, fair, foursquare, gentlemanlike, guileless, honest, honestly, honest-minded, honorable, honourable, mensurable, on the level, on the up and up, open, reliable, reputable, respectable, righteous, simple, sincere, sincerely, sporting, sportsmanlike, Square, straightforward, true, trustful, truthful, unfeigned, upright, venerable, virtuous). (various references) скрупулезный, щепетильный (punctilious, squeamish, stuffy), добросовестный (bona fide, conscientious, neighborly, religious). (various references) skrupulozan, pun obzira. (various references) escrupuloso (accurate, compunctious, delicate, qualmish, queasy, tender), meticuloso (accurate, fussy, meticulous, precise, thorough). (various references) samvetsgrann (bona fide, conscientious, religious). (various references) vicdanlı (conscientious), titiz (careful, choosy, cleanly, critical, dainty, demanding, difficult, exact, exacting, exigent, fastidious, finical, finicking, finicky, fussy, hypercritical, jealous, jealous of, meticulous, niggling, niminy-piminy, particular, peevish, pernickety, picky, rigorous, squeamish, touchy), evhamlı (gun-shy, neurotic), dikkatli (argus-eyed, assiduous, attentive, canny, careful, cautious, circumspect, gingerly, heedful, intense, intent, mindful, particular, regardful, rigorous, sleepless, solicitous, studious, thoughtful, wary, watchful), adil (equitable, even handed, fair, fair-minded, impartial, just, lawful, righteous, right-minded), özenli (assiduous, attentive, careful, elaborate, heedful, jealous, painstaking, regardful, thoughtful). (various references) скрупульозний (nice, punctilious, thorough), чесний (above board, bona fide, clean-fingered, clean-handed, conscientious, fair, fair dealing, faithful, honest, honorable, honourable, sincere, single minded, stainless, straight, straightforward, upright, white-handed), бездоганний (blameless, faultless, flawless, immaculate, impeccable, indefectible, irreproachable, paragon, pure, stainless, taintless, thoroughbred, unexceptionable, unimpeachable), делікатний (kid glove, pernickety, persnickety, queasy, slippery, ticklish). (various references) quá tỉ mỉ (overelaborate), ngại ngùng; quá thận trọng, đắn đo. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "scrupulous": scrupulously, scrupulousness, scrupulousnesses. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "scrupulous": overscrupulous, unscrupulous. (additional references) | |
Words containing "scrupulous": unscrupulously, unscrupulousness, unscrupulousnesses. (additional references) | |
| |
"Scrupulous" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: scripulum, scruplous, scrupluous, scruptulous, scrupules, scrupulosis, scrupulours, scrupulus, scrupuous, scurpulous, srupulous. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "scrupulous" (pronounced skruw"pyulus) |
| 10 | s k r uw" p y u l u s | unscrupulous. |
| 6 | -p y u l u s | populace, populous. |
| 5 | -y u l u s | calculus, fabulous, meticulous, miraculous, nebulous, ridiculous, stimulus, tremulous. |
| 4 | -u l u s | acropolis, anomalous, Carolus, frivolous, garrulous, incredulous, libelous, marvelous, megalopolis, merciless, metropolis, nautilus, necropolis, Oxalis, pendulous, perilous, querulous, scandalous, scurrilous, syphilis, tantalus. |
| 3 | -l u s | accomplice, ageless, aimless, airless, Amaryllis, atlas, bacillus, backless, balas, baseless, blameless, bloodless, bolus, boneless, bottomless, boundless, brainless, breathless, callous, callus, careless, cashless, ceaseless, childless, classless, cloudless, clueless, Colas, colorless, cordless, countless, cutlass, defenseless, digitalis, directionless, doubtless, driverless, ductless, earless, effortless, endless, expressionless, eyeless, faceless, fatherless, fearless, featherless, featureless, feckless, fellas, fenceless, flawless, flightless, frictionless, fruitless, Gallus, gladiolus, godless, graceless, groundless, guileless, guiltless, hairless, hapless, harmless, headless, heartless, helpless, homeless, hopeless, hornless, humorless, irregardless, issueless, jealous, jobless, keyless, lactobacillus, landless, lawless, leaderless, leafless, legless, lifeless, limbless, limitless, listless, loveless, luckless, malice, meaningless, meatless, mindless, motherless, motionless, nameless, necklace, needless, odorless, overzealous, painless, palace, paperless, peerless, penniless, pilotless, pitiless, pointless, polis, powerless, priceless, prothallus, purposeless, reckless, regardless, relentless, remorseless, restless, riskless, rootless, rudderless, ruthless, scoreless, seamless, selfless, senseless, sexless, shameless, shapeless, shiftless, skinless, sleepless, sleeveless, smokeless, solace, soulless, speechless, spineless, spotless, stainless, stateless, stylus, surplus, tasteless, thankless, thoughtless, ticketless, tieless, timeless, tireless, toothless, topless, treeless, trellis, useless, valueless, victimless, voiceless, warrantless, weightless, windlass, windowless, wireless, witless, wordless, worthless, zealous, zipless. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-l-o-p-r-s-s-u-u-u" | |
-3 letters: cuprous, surplus, upcurls. | |
-4 letters: clours, corpus, croups, lupous, oculus, scours, sculps, slurps, sulcus, upcurl, usurps. | |
-5 letters: clops, clour, corps, coups, crops, cross, croup, curls, cusps, cusso, locus, loups, lours, lupus, lusus, pours, pross, purls, roups, scops, scour, sculp, scups, slops, slurp, slurs, solus, sorus, souls, soups, sours, spurs, sulus, usurp. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-l-o-p-r-s-s-u-u-u" | |
+2 letters: groupuscules, scrupulously, unscrupulous. | |
+4 letters: overscrupulous, scrupulousness, unscrupulously. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 63 72 75 70 75 6C 6F 75 73 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)... -.-. .-. ..- .--. ..- .-.. --- ..- ... |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01100011 01110010 01110101 01110000 01110101 01101100 01101111 01110101 01110011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S c r u p u l o u s |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 0063 0072 0075 0070 0075 006C 006F 0075 0073 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)53698487828778818785 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Sounds 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Historic | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Speeches 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Orthography 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.