scrutinize

Forms

• scrutinise (UK)

Etymology

It is formed from English scrutiny + -ize.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The noun is from Late Latin scrūtinium (“a search, inquiry”),^[2][3][8][9] from Latin scrūtor (“to examine, investigate, search”),^[2][3][8][9] from scrūta (“trash, old things, rags”).^[8][9][7] Barnhart calls this plural noun of uncertain origin,^[8] while Klein and Etymonline derive it from Proto-Indo-European *skreu- (“to cut, cutting tool”), and so connect it with shred.^[9][3] An earlier English verb, scrutine, from the 1590s, came from French scrutine.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To examine methodically and with close attention: 1671, in W. Salmon's Synopsis Medicinae.^[2][4] Etymonline has the 1670s,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1665–75.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Ayto finds the image of ragpickers behind the Latin family: scrūta was rubbish, and scrūtor meant to rummage through it, and then, more broadly, to search or examine.^[7] In English, the noun scrutiny first concerned the taking of votes (1415 in Barnhart, about 1450 in the OED), and took the general meaning of critical inquiry in 1604.^[8][2] The verb, formed after that, was general from the start;^[2] the special use for examining votes appears only in 1750, in a letter of Horace Walpole's.^[2] An intransitive use, usually with into, ran from the late 17th to the late 18th century according to the OED and the Shorter Oxford,^[2][5] though Merriam-Webster Unabridged still lists an intransitive use.^[4]

Timeline

• 1671 – to examine methodically and closely.^[2][4]
• 1699 – intransitive, to make a scrutiny, usually with into (obsolete by 1788).^[2]
• 1750 – with reference to votes, to check them officially.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To examine something closely and in detail; to inspect: The inspector scrutinized the signature on the deed.^[10][4][2]
2. To examine votes officially, to confirm the count of an election.^[2]

Word family

• scrutinizer
• scrutinizingly
• scrutinization

Related words

• inscrutable
• scrutineer
• scrutiny
• shred

Usage notes

Dictionary.com labels the spelling scrutinise as especially British,^[6] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls it less common.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins