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chary.

Careful, cautious, shy, wary.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈt͡ʃɛəɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˈt͡ʃɛɹi//ˈt͡ʃɛəɹi//ˈt͡ʃeː.ɹi/Australia

  1. Careful, cautious, shy, wary.

  2. Excessively particular or fussy about details; fastidious.

  3. Not disposed to give freely; not lavish; frugal, sparing.

  4. Cared for, regarded as precious; cherished.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English chari, charre, charri, chary, Early Middle English cearig, chariȝ (“concerned with, diligent; sad, sorrowful; of a person: cherished, loved”), from Old English ċeariġ (“careful; pensive; chary, wary; anxious, sad, sorrowful; dire, grievous”), from Proto-West Germanic *karag (“anxious; sad”), from Proto-Germanic *karō + *-gaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵeh₂r- (“exclamation; voice”) + *-kos (suffix forming adjectives with the meaning ‘pertaining to; typical of’)); analysable as care + -y. The English word is cognate with Danish karrig (“miserly, stingy”), Dutch karig (“austere, scant, sparing”), Norwegian karrig (“barren; meagre; poor”), Old High German charag, karag (“sparing”) (modern German karg (“barren; meagre, poor”)), Old Saxon carag, karag, Swedish karg (“austere; barren; hungry; needy, poor”). See further at care.

adv/ˈt͡ʃɛəɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˈt͡ʃɛɹi//ˈt͡ʃɛəɹi//ˈt͡ʃeː.ɹi/Australia

  1. Synonym of charily: carefully, cautiously, warily.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English chari, charre, charri, chary, Early Middle English cearig, chariȝ (“concerned with, diligent; sad, sorrowful; of a person: cherished, loved”), from Old English ċeariġ (“careful; pensive; chary, wary; anxious, sad, sorrowful; dire, grievous”), from Proto-West Germanic *karag (“anxious; sad”), from Proto-Germanic *karō + *-gaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵeh₂r- (“exclamation; voice”) + *-kos (suffix forming adjectives with the meaning ‘pertaining to; typical of’)); analysable as care + -y. The English word is cognate with Danish karrig (“miserly, stingy”), Dutch karig (“austere, scant, sparing”), Norwegian karrig (“barren; meagre; poor”), Old High German charag, karag (“sparing”) (modern German karg (“barren; meagre, poor”)), Old Saxon carag, karag, Swedish karg (“austere; barren; hungry; needy, poor”). See further at care.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.