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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

wary.

Cautious of danger; carefully watching and guarding against deception, trickery, and dangers; suspiciously prudent

4 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈwɛə.ɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˈwɛɚ.i/General-American/ˈweːɹi/Australia/ˈweəɹi/New-Zealand
  1. Cautious of danger; carefully watching and guarding against deception, trickery, and dangers; suspiciously prudent

    He is wary of dogs.
  2. Characterized by caution; guarded; careful; on one's guard

  3. thrifty, provident

Where this word comes from

From the adjective ware + -y.

verb/ˈwɛə.ɹi/Received-Pronunciation/ˈwɛɚ.i/General-American/ˈweːɹi/Australia/ˈweəɹi/New-Zealand
  1. To curse, revile.

    dialectal
Where this word comes from

From Middle English warien, from Old English wierġan (“to curse, do evil”), from Proto-West Germanic *wargijan, from Proto-Germanic *wargijaną (“to condemn, curse”), from Proto-Germanic *wargaz (“criminal”). Doublet of warry.

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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.