callous

A callous person is insensitive or emotionally

hardened. If you laugh at your little sister
while she's trying to show you her poetry,
you're being callous.
Callous comes from the Latin root callum for hard skin. If you walk barefoot a lot,
your feet will become calloused. We usually use callous in the metaphorical sense
for emotionally hardened. If someone is unmoved by other people's problems, you
might say he shows a callous indifference to human suffering.
pharisaica
l
Someone who is pharisaical preaches one
thing and then does another not a good
trait for politicians or even playground pals.
Why use pharisaical when you could say hypocritical? In general, you would
probably use the word in especially severe cases of hypocrisy, particularly when
someone is not only a hypocrite, but acts superior and is being particularly
annoying about it. The word pharisaical can be traced all the way back to the
Pharisees, an ancient Jewish group who insisted on the strict following of certain
laws, though some people considered the group to be self-righteous.
scrupulou
s
Scrupulous means very careful to do things
properly and correctly, such as paying friends
back for money borrowed right away, or not
returning a pair of shoes after they've been
worn outdoors.
A scrupulous person is full of scruples, which are concerns about doing things that
are morally right. Such a person is hesitant or doubtful, and might have trouble
deciding what is morally right or wrong. The adjective scrupulous is from
Latin scrpulsus, from scrpulus "scruple." A near synonym is punctilious.
lax
Those parents who let their kids eat all their
Halloween candy the night of October 31st?
Their parenting style might be described
as lax. A paperclip chain used as a bike lock?
That's an example of lax security.
While contemplating the word lax, you may note that it's the same as the first
syllable in laxative. This is not a coincidence: lax entered English as a noun
describing a substance taken or administered to relax the bowels. Interestingly, the
modern definition of lax is closer to the Latin source word, laxus an adjective
meaning "loose." Now, lax can refer to any phenomenon that is insufficiently
stringent or so slack as to be basically ineffectual. For example, "The entire class
performed incredibly well on the test, largely due to the sleepy
professor's lax supervision."
strict
Strict describes someone who sticks to a
particular set of rules. If your math teacher
is strict, it means that she expects her rules to
be followed to the letter.
The adjective strict always has to do with rules. Your strict parents enforced rules
and expected you to obey them. Your cousin might be a strict vegetarian who
always follows her own rules about what to eat. Strict laws demand to be followed,
and a strict follower of the First Amendment supports free speech no matter what.
The Latin root of strict is strictus, which means "drawn together, tight, or rigid." A
rigid adherence to rules is exactly what makes someone strict.