The Origin of Unscrupulous, thanks to a Stone in your Shoe
This week’s word is unscrupulous, simply because I like this word. A scruple sounds like a character in Dickens, doesn’t it?
The dictionary tells me somebody is unscrupulous if they show no moral principles and treat others in a dishonest or unfair manner. Although such people have existed since the beginning of human history the word itself is fairly recent. It was first recorded in the early 1800s as a compounding of un and scrupulous. Yes, scrupulous was a word first.
Naturally that put me on the hunt for scrupulous and I found extra meanings along the way. Scrupulous dates to the mid 1400s. It was in use for four centuries before we got its opposite word, unscrupulous. Scrupulous’ meaning isn’t the exact opposite, however. It has two meanings, the least used one is somebody who is concerned to avoided wrong-doing. The other you may be familiar with — a person or process which is careful, thorough, and attentive to details. There is no moral judgement needed for scrupulous with that meaning.
Scrupulous reached English from the Anglo-French word scrupulus, via French scrupuleux, and eventually from the Latin word scrupulus. You can also use the variants s crupulously and scrupulousness.
This led me to wonder — what is a scruple? Apparently it is (since the late 1300s) a pang of conscience or a moral qualm. It comes from the Latin scrupulus mentioned above. Scrupulus is the diminutive form of a scrupus which is a sharp stone or pebble. This was used by Cicero as an explanation for the pricking of your conscience being like having a small stone in your shoe, jabbing at you periodically as you progressed through your day. The same word, for some strange reason, was also used as a small unit of weight in English around the same date. Wouldn’t it be amazing if it was used to weigh your conscience?
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43BC), in case you’re curious, was a Roman statesman, scholar, lawyer, and philosopher. I particularly like his opinion that “if you have a garden and a library; you have everything you need.”
Until next time be sure to shake any scruples from your shoes before starting your day. Happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)
I write books about the history of unusual English words. Check them out here https://wordfoolery.wordpress.com/my-books/
Edited for Medium, but originally published at http://wordfoolery.wordpress.com on June 14, 2021.
