Unscrupulous

Definition: Unscrupulous

Unscrupulous

Adjective

1. Without scruples or principles; "unscrupulous politicos who would be happy to sell...their country in order to gain power".

2. Lacking honesty and oblivious to what is honorable.

Date "unscrupulous" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1830. (references)

Synonym: Unscrupulous

Synonym: dishonest (adj). (additional references)

Antonym: scrupulous (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Improbity	Adjective: dishonest, dishonorable; unconscientious, unscrupulous; fraudulent; knavish; disgraceful; (disreputable); wicked.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Unscrupulous

English words defined with "unscrupulous": Figaro ♦ hustler ♦ low blow ♦ Machiavellianism ♦ operator ♦ pettifogger ♦ shyster ♦ unscrupulousness ♦ wheeler dealer. (references)

Specialty definitions using "unscrupulous": BABY, Belphegor ♦ Corpse, Criminal ♦ Devil, Donkey ♦ Gallows ♦ Handkerchiefs ♦ Nets ♦ Powder, Priest ♦ reverse engineering, Rinaldo ♦ shystee. (references)

Domain	Title
Books	An Unscrupulous Bride (reference) Consulting Demons: Inside the Unscrupulous World of Global Corporate Consulting [BARGAIN PRICE] (reference) The Exploitation of potential immigrants by unscrupulous consultants : this is a discussion paper (reference) The Unscrupulous Uncle (Signet Regency Romance) (reference) What Lenders Don't Want You to Know: How to Keep from Being Surreptitiously Ripped Off by Unscrupulous Mortgage Professionals (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	A natural protective watershed has been destroyed by unscrupulous logging companies. Mount Hood National Forest, Oregon. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

Title	Author	Quote
Scarlet Letter	Hawthorne, Nathaniel	Unscrupulous as it was, however, it could not bring them nearer than a circuit of several yards.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Business		However, some unscrupulous employment agents bring foreign workers to the UAE under conditions approaching indenture. (references)
		Defaulting on obligations became widespread after the financial crisis in Russia in August 1998, giving the impression that the crisis has been used by unscrupulous organizations in Russia as cover to default on all varieties of legal obligations, and to disavow all manner of debts. (references)
Economic History	Guinea	Unscrupulous investors, poor management, and corruption, however, caused major setbacks in this sector, on both proposed and ongoing projects. (references)
	Vietnam	This is a potentially significant change as some foreign investors have complained they have been harassed with frequent and unusual inspections by unscrupulous officials. (references)
	Nepal	There have been instances in the past in which unscrupulous local partners have used the tax or regulatory system to seize control of a joint venture firm from the U.S. investor. (references)
Political Economy	Bulgaria	Among some state-owned companies assets have been siphoned off by unscrupulous managers in league with private business people -- a practice which the government has attempted to curb. (references)
Women	Indonesia	In some cases, unscrupulous recruitment agencies have promised women employment as domestic servants overseas and then held them against their would for extended periods until jobs are found for them. (references)
Worker Rights	Oman	Others are reluctant to file complaints for fear of retribution from unscrupulous employers. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

"Unscrupulous" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Unscrupulous" is used about 240 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	100%	240	19,318

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "unscrupulous"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		i paskrupull (reprobate, unprincipled), i pandershëm (base, conscienceless, dark, devious, dirty, dishonest, disreputable, ill gotten, knavish, mean, rascally, raw, roguish, unfaithful, unsportsmanlike). (various references)

Arabic		‏مجرد من المبادئ (unprincipled), ‏عديم الضمير (unconscionable, unprincipled). (various references)

Bulgarian		безсрамен (barefaced, brassy, brazen, graceless, immodest, impudent, outre, shameless, unabashed, unashamed), безскрупулен (conscienceless, ruthless, sharp, slim, slippery, slippy, smart, unconscionable, unconscious). (various references)

Chinese		肆� 忌惮. (various references)

Czech		nesvìdomitý (conscienceless, unconscionable), bezohledný (callous, cutthroat, heartless, inconsiderate, reckless, ruthless, thoughtless, unceremonious). (various references)

Farsi		بی پروا (Adventurer, Audacious, Confident, Daredevil, Dashing, Harebrained, Headlong, Heady, Heedless, Impetuous, Inconsiderate, Rash, Reckless, Slapdash, Unadvised), بی مرام (Shyster, Unprincipled), بی توجه به نیک وبد. (various references)

Finnish		tunnoton (insensible, unconscious), häikäilemätön (arrogant, inconsiderate). (various references)

French		sans scrupules (unprincipled), malhonnête (unfrank), dénué de scrupules. (various references)

German		skrupellos (machiavellians, ruthless, ruthlessly, unconscionable, unethical, unprincipled, unscrupulously), hemmungslos (abandoned, incontinent, unarrested, unbridled, uncontrollably, uncontrolled, unrestrained, unscrupulously), gewissenlos (irresponsible, unprincipled, unprincipledly, unscrupulously). (various references)

Greek		ασυνείδητοσ (conscienceless, remorseless, unconscionable). (various references)

Hebrew		חסר מצפון (unprincipled). (various references)

Hungarian		lelkiismeretlen (conscienceless, have no conscience, unconscionable, unprincipled). (various references)

Italian		senza scrupoli (machiavellians, unethical). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		非良心的 (dishonest, irresponsibly done). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		ひりょうし�"てき (dishonest, irresponsibly done). (various references)

Korean		악랄한. (various references)

Pig Latin		upulousunscray

Portuguese		sem vergonha (barefaced, impudent, licentious, profligate, shameless, unashamed, unblushing, wasteful), sem escrúpulos (conscienceless, unprincipled), sem consciência (conscienceless, unconscionable, unwitting), pouco escrupuloso (unconscionable). (various references)

Romanian		neruşinat (barefaced, bold, brassy, brazen faced, cheeky, frontless, graceless, impudent, indecent, nervy, outrageous, ribald, saucy, shameless), lipsit de scrupule. (various references)

Russian		нещепетильный, беспринципный (unprincipled). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		nesavestan (conscienceless, unconscionable), nepošten (crooked, devious, dishonest, immoral, knavish, underhand, underhanded, unprincipled), beskrupulozan (unconscionable). (various references)

Spanish		poco escrupuloso (unprincipled). (various references)

Swedish		samvetslös (conscienceless, unconscionable, unprincipled), hänsynslös (desperate, hard bitten, inconsiderate, reckless, wanton). (various references)

Turkish		vicdansız (cold blooded, hard-hearted, remorseless, unconscientious, unconscionable, without remorse), ahlaksız (abandoned, characterless, corrupt, debauched, depraved, dirty, disorderly, dissolute, frail, ill, immoral, impure, libertine, loose, low down, mean, purple, rascal, rascally, rep, reprobate, unclean, uncleanly, unmoral, unprincipled, unregenerate, vicious, wanton, wicked). (various references)

Turkmen		naяynsap (unconscionable). (various references)

Ukrainian		несумлінний, неделікатний (inconsiderate, indelicate). (various references)

Vietnamese		không ngần ngại vô lưng tâm, không đắn đo. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "unscrupulous": unscrupulously, unscrupulousness, unscrupulousnesses. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Unscrupulous" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: unscroupulous, unscruplous, unscrupulious, unscrupulis, unscrupulos, unscrypulous, unscupulous, unsrupulous. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "unscrupulous" (pronounced unskruw"pyulus)
10	-s k r uw" p y u l u s	scrupulous.
6	-p y u l u s	populace, populous.
5	-y u l u s	calculus, fabulous, meticulous, miraculous, nebulous, ridiculous, stimulus, tremulous.
4	-u l u s	acropolis, anomalous, Carolus, frivolous, garrulous, incredulous, libelous, marvelous, megalopolis, merciless, metropolis, nautilus, necropolis, Oxalis, pendulous, perilous, querulous, scandalous, scurrilous, syphilis, tantalus.
3	-l u s	accomplice, ageless, aimless, airless, Amaryllis, atlas, bacillus, backless, balas, baseless, blameless, bloodless, bolus, boneless, bottomless, boundless, brainless, breathless, callous, callus, careless, cashless, ceaseless, childless, classless, cloudless, clueless, Colas, colorless, cordless, countless, cutlass, defenseless, digitalis, directionless, doubtless, driverless, ductless, earless, effortless, endless, expressionless, eyeless, faceless, fatherless, fearless, featherless, featureless, feckless, fellas, fenceless, flawless, flightless, frictionless, fruitless, Gallus, gladiolus, godless, graceless, groundless, guileless, guiltless, hairless, hapless, harmless, headless, heartless, helpless, homeless, hopeless, hornless, humorless, irregardless, issueless, jealous, jobless, keyless, lactobacillus, landless, lawless, leaderless, leafless, legless, lifeless, limbless, limitless, listless, loveless, luckless, malice, meaningless, meatless, mindless, motherless, motionless, nameless, necklace, needless, odorless, overzealous, painless, palace, paperless, peerless, penniless, pilotless, pitiless, pointless, polis, powerless, priceless, prothallus, purposeless, reckless, regardless, relentless, remorseless, restless, riskless, rootless, rudderless, ruthless, scoreless, seamless, selfless, senseless, sexless, shameless, shapeless, shiftless, skinless, sleepless, sleeveless, smokeless, solace, soulless, speechless, spineless, spotless, stainless, stateless, stylus, surplus, tasteless, thankless, thoughtless, ticketless, tieless, timeless, tireless, toothless, topless, treeless, trellis, useless, valueless, victimless, voiceless, warrantless, weightless, windlass, windowless, wireless, witless, wordless, worthless, zealous, zipless.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "c-l-n-o-p-r-s-s-u-u-u-u"
	-2 letters: scrupulous.
	-5 letters: consuls, cuprous, surplus, uncross, uncurls, upcurls.
	Words containing the letters "c-l-n-o-p-r-s-s-u-u-u-u"
	+2 letters: unscrupulously.
	+4 letters: unscrupulousness.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.