make conscience

English

Alternative forms

• make a conscience

Verb

make conscience (third-person singular simple present makes conscience, present participle making conscience, simple past and past participle made conscience)

1. (obsolete) To make it a matter of conscience; to be scrupulous about. [16th–19th c.]
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 4, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     I make a conscience [translating faits conscience], standing neare some great person, if mine eyes chance, at unwares, to steale some knowledge of any letters of importance that he readeth.

   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year:

     I mention this story also as the best method I can advise any person to take in such a case, especially if he be one that makes conscience of his duty, and would be directed what to do in it […].

   • 1856, Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits, Cockayne:

     The pursy man means by freedom the right to do as he pleases, and does wrong in order to feel his freedom, and makes a conscience of persisting in it.