Word.ws English Dictionary

ca canny

ca canny verb: to go carefully or slowly; to take care. Also the alternative form of ca' canny.

Verb

ca canny

  1. (Scotland) To go carefully or slowly; to take care.
    • […] the inevitable result was that the willing horses were overworked. It was a point of honour not to ca’ canny.1922, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World
    • I walked away from the fire and tore up green bracken, caw-cannying not to slash my fingers on stalks.1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 79

Also used as

ca canny is also the alternative form of ca' canny.

Forms of ca canny

alternative formca' canny
alternative formcaw canny

Origin of ca canny

Borrowed from Scots ca canny.

Questions about ca canny

What does ca canny mean?
Ca canny means to go carefully or slowly; to take care.
What part of speech is ca canny?
Ca canny is a verb.

Words near ca canny in the dictionary

  1. c@
  2. c@s
  3. C`num`
  4. C`vert`N`gt`K
  5. ca
  6. ca canny
  7. ca' canny
  8. ca' cannyism
  9. ca'canny
  10. ca'ing whale
  11. ca'ing whales

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ca canny (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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