scruple-shop
scruple-shop noun: a place where religious matters are debated, particularly with the aim of relieving participants of their scruples of conscience.
Noun
scruple-shop (plural scruple-shops)
- A place where religious matters are debated, particularly with the aim of relieving participants of their scruples of conscience.
- The cure for diseased consciences is not to be found in a “scruple shop,” but in the love and care of the great Physician.1771, John Wesley, Works, volume 2, page 129
- Elinor, on the other hand, bred up amid a clamour of perpetual contention,—for the house of her mother’s family, in which her first years had been passed, was, in the language of the profane of those times, a scruple-shop, where the godly of all denominations held their conferences of...1820, [Charles Robert Maturin], Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale. […], volume IV, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 223
Forms of scruple-shop
| plural | scruple-shops |
|---|
Origin of scruple-shop
Compound of scruple + shop. Originally applied derogatorily by Oxford students to a particular group of seven Presbyterian ministers who established weekly meetings to discuss questions of conscience in Oxford in 1646.
Questions about scruple-shop
- What does scruple-shop mean?
- Scruple-shop means a place where religious matters are debated, particularly with the aim of relieving participants of their scruples of conscience.
- What part of speech is scruple-shop?
- Scruple-shop is a noun.
- What is the plural of scruple-shop?
- The plural of scruple-shop is scruple-shops.
Words near scruple-shop in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: scruple-shop (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “scruple-shop.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scruple-shop. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.