What's the difference between compunctious and scruple?

Compunctious


Definition:

  • (a.) Of the nature of compunction; caused by conscience; attended with, or causing, compunction.

Example Sentences:

Scruple


Definition:

  • (n.) A weight of twenty grains; the third part of a dram.
  • (n.) Hence, a very small quantity; a particle.
  • (n.) Hesitation as to action from the difficulty of determining what is right or expedient; unwillingness, doubt, or hesitation proceeding from motives of conscience.
  • (v. i.) To be reluctant or to hesitate, as regards an action, on account of considerations of conscience or expedience.
  • (v. t.) To regard with suspicion; to hesitate at; to question.
  • (v. t.) To excite scruples in; to cause to scruple.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Their mutual enmity toward the West would in the end triumph over any scruples of that nature, as we see graphically in Iraq today.
  • (2) "Since then there has been silence, as if, under the pressure of contemporary change, there was no more moral scruple and concern, no new substance to be spun.
  • (3) I am not going to tread on private (and public) grief in the case of Miliband, other than to say that, when saddled with a leader they regard as a loser, the Tories traditionally have no scruples in unseating the incumbent.
  • (4) A sensationalist and scruple-free press seems eager to collude in their “noble lie”: that a Middle Eastern militia, thriving on the utter ineptitude of its local adversaries, poses an “existential risk” to an island fortress that saw off Napoleon and Hitler .
  • (5) "The company has acted without scruples and without any compassion for the victims."
  • (6) Scruple also makes it necessary to point out that the gap between the Lib Dems and Labour is within the margin of polling error, so the Labour third place may not be definite.
  • (7) "Without consideration, scruples or respect, our family misfortune is being put on display and marketed," Ulrich Busch told Stern magazine's website .
  • (8) In this article, two cases are presented that illustrate that the principles underlying medical practice and religious scruples are often the same.
  • (9) (4) The extension of the instruments of traffic legislation to immediate measures by the police--preliminary or "mini" suspension of a person's driving license by resort to preventive rights by the police?--meets with constitutional or legal scruples.
  • (10) To claim the crown, should he trust Melisandre, whose mysterious powers and zero scruples about parricide could make him king?
  • (11) Part of the Ministry of Defence, but employing arms company executives as well as civil servants, Deso quickly learned to chase export orders without too many scruples.
  • (12) Colleagues have no scruples in the tactics they employ to silence female colleagues – "The leadership cuts our microphones off," she says – or through intimidation.
  • (13) It required the party's home affairs person to set aside any personal scruple and throw political red meat to the angry hang-'em-and-flog-'em lions in the conference hall.
  • (14) If they sell businesses that cause harm, or close them down, they argue that all that will happen is that someone with fewer scruples may just step into the space.
  • (15) To promote the selling of arms in Remembrance week suggests a man with either no scruples or very poor judgment.
  • (16) I didn't have time to deal with someone else's heartache or their moral scruples vis-a-vis ditching an apparently iron-clad prior engagement.
  • (17) Society can’t afford too many scruples about the privacy of those who provoke such suspicions.
  • (18) The face has a vague familiarity; Howard recalls that this depressed-looking figure is a lecturer in the English department, a man who, 10 years earlier, had produced two tolerably well known and acceptably reviewed novels, filled, as novels then were, with moral scruple and concern.
  • (19) But he also upset corporate social responsibility advocates by showing himself willing to throw former scruples and do deals with TNK investors just months after he had threatened to sue them.
  • (20) Although he had no scruples about violating the right to life, he was a fanatic about regulations.

Words possibly related to "compunctious"