scrupulosity

plural scrupulosities

1. countableuncountableThe property of being scrupulous; excessive attention to scruples.

   Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.

   1759, Samuel Johnson, chapter 26, in The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

   3 more examples

   So then the whole scripture of God, being true, whence soever this be delivered and gathered, it skilleth not: And it is of us to be taken without curious scrupulosity, as sacred and undoubted scripture, seeing it was written by the holy apostle, into whom the holy Ghost was inspired, as is witnessed.

   1592, Richard Turnbull, An Exposition upon the Canonicall Epistle of Saint Jude, London: John Windet, Sermon 5, p. 67

   Why should an auctioneer and appraiser thirty years ago, who had as good as forgotten his free-school Latin, be expected to manifest a delicate scrupulosity which is not always exhibited by gentlemen of the learned professions, even in our present advanced stage of morality?

   1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book I, Chapter 3

   His queer air of listening to himself, the way he had of responding to his own idea in a complex sequence of feelings by a wavering, then pinched smile and a line of doubt drawn on his forehead—such scrupulosity vaguely irritated me.

   1988, Edmund White, chapter 3, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994

   Synonyms: scrupulousness

2. countableuncountableA mental disorder, generally considered a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), characterized by excessive concern with moral or religious matters