Word.ws English Dictionary

cautels

cautels is the plural of cautel.

Meaning of cautel

Noun

cautel (countable and uncountable, plural cautels)

  1. (obsolete) deceit
    • Perhaps he loves you now,
      And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
      The virtue of his willc. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  2. (obsolete) caution; prudence; wariness
    • Here come institution, by your blasphemous sacrifice, in all cautels and provisions of the Massa. 1589, William Fulke, Confutation of the Rhemish Testament
  3. A traditional caution or written direction about the proper manner of administering the sacraments.

Questions about cautels

What is cautels the plural of?
Cautels is the plural of cautel.

Words near cautels in the dictionary

  1. cauted
  2. cautel
  3. cautelous
  4. cautelously
  5. cautelousness
  6. cautels
  7. cauter
  8. cauterant
  9. cauterants
  10. cauteries
  11. cauterisation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cautels (page history and authors); cautel (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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Cite this entry: “cautels.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cautels. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.