Word.ws English Dictionary

cautelous

cautelous adjective: skillful in trickery or deception; cunning, wily.

Adjective

cautelous (comparative more cautelous, superlative most cautelous)

  1. (obsolete) Skillful in trickery or deception; cunning, wily.
    • The least touch of [Gaveston's] memory adds more to the King's affliction, who is fixt not to forget, or forgive, so bold and heinous a Trespass. The operations in the King were yet so powerful, but the jelousies of the Actors [who have killed Gaveston] are as cautelous, so fair a warning-piece...c. 1620s, Elizabeth Cary [misattributed to Henry Cary], The History Of the most unfortunate Prince King Edward II. […] , London: A.G. and F. P., published 1680, page 12
    • I am not able to unfold, how this cautelous enterprise of licencing can be exempted from the number of vain and impossible attempts.1644, John Milton, Areopagitica
  2. (obsolete) Cautious, careful.
    • Some are of disposition fearefull, some bold, most cautelous, all Savage.1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 140

Forms of cautelous

comparativemore cautelous
superlativemost cautelous

Origin of cautelous

From Middle French cauteleux.

Words formed from cautelous

Questions about cautelous

What does cautelous mean?
Cautelous means skillful in trickery or deception; cunning, wily.
What part of speech is cautelous?
Cautelous is an adjective.

Words near cautelous in the dictionary

  1. caustobioliths
  2. Causton
  3. caut
  4. cauted
  5. cautel
  6. cautelous
  7. cautelously
  8. cautelousness
  9. cautels
  10. cauter
  11. cauterant

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cautelous (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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