Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “scruple” come from?

Scruple comes from Old French scrupule, from Latin scrupulus, diminutive of scrupa, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European roots meaning to cut or scratch.

scruple (English): A weight of 1⁄288 of a pound, that is, twenty...

Definitions

  1. A weight of 1⁄288 of a pound, that is, twenty...

Ancestry of “scruple”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Old Frenchscrupule—
2Latinscrūpulus—
3Latin-ulusUsed to form a diminutive of a noun, indicating...
4Proto-Italic-olos—
5Proto-Italic-elos—
6Proto-Indo-European-e-lós—
7Proto-Indo-European-lósForms agent nouns from verbal roots

Words derived from “scruple”

  • scrupleless
  • scrupler
Every word from Proto-Indo-European -lós →