precaution
Syllables: pre·cau·tion/pɹiːˈkɔːʃən/UK/pɹiːˈkɔː.ʃən/
precaution noun: previous caution or care; caution previously employed to prevent misfortune or to secure good.
Noun
precaution (countable and uncountable, plural precautions)
- Previous caution or care; caution previously employed to prevent misfortune or to secure good.
- his life was saved by precaution
- July 2, 1826, John Henry Newman, The Philosophical Temper, First Enjoined by the Gospel
The ancient philosophers treasured up their supposed discoveries with miserable precaution.
- A measure taken beforehand to ward off evil or secure good or success; a precautionary act.
- to take precautions against risks of accident
- Despite all these precautions, however, severe storms sometimes caused drifts which brought traffic completely to a standstill.1955 December, H. A. Vallance, “The Highland Centenary—2”, in Railway Magazine, page 859
Verb
precaution (third-person singular simple present precautions, present participle precautioning, simple past and past participle precautioned)
- To warn or caution beforehand.
- To take precaution against.
precaution meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
precaution in Hindi
- precaution, care
- सावधानी sāvdhānī
- precaution
- एहतियात ehtiyāt
precaution in Tamil
- முன்னெச்சரிக்கை
precaution in Urdu
- precaution, care, caution, wariness
- احتیاط ihtiyāt
precaution in Bengali
- সতর্কতা, পূর্বসতর্কতা
More languagesFewer languages
- precaution in Telugu
- ముందుజాగ్రత్త, ముందు జాగ్రత్త
- precaution in Malayalam
- മുൻവിചാരം, പുർവ്വചിന്താവിധാനം, മുൻകരുതൽ
- precaution in Kannada
- ಮುನ್ನೆಚ್ಚರಿಕೆ, ಮುಂಜಾಗ್ರತೆ, ಪೂರ್ವಭಾವಿ ಜಾಗ್ರತೆಯ ಕ್ರಮ
- precaution in Gujarati
- તકેદારી
- precaution in Sanskrit
- प्रयत्न prayatna
- precaution in Indonesian
- langkah pencegahan
- precaution in Persian
- احتیاط ehtiyât, اقدام احتیاطی eqdâm-e ehtiyâti
Examples of precaution in a sentence
- The sudden drop in temperature should alarm you into taking precautions.
- This deadly scenario with this hurricane is still in play, so please take precaution.
- The precautions were mandated by a judge.
Synonyms of precaution
Forms of precaution
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | precautions |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | precautions |
| present participle | precautioning |
| past participle | precautioned |
| past | precautioned |
Origin of precaution
From French précaution, Latin praecautio, from praecavere, praecautum (“to guard against beforehand”); prae (“before”) + cavere (“be on one's guard”). See pre-, and caution.
Words formed from precaution
Questions about precaution
- What does precaution mean?
- Precaution means previous caution or care; caution previously employed to prevent misfortune or to secure good.
- What is precaution in Hindi?
- Precaution in Hindi is सावधानी (sāvdhānī), एहतियात (ehtiyāt). See Precaution meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is precaution?
- Precaution can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce precaution?
- Precaution is pronounced /pɹiːˈkɔːʃən/.
- What is the plural of precaution?
- The plural of precaution is precautions.
Words near precaution in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: precaution (page history and authors); एहतियात (Hindi) (page history and authors); precaution (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); احتیاط (Urdu) (page history and authors); precaution (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); precaution (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); precaution (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); precaution (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); precaution (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); प्रयत्न (Sanskrit) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-precaution.ogg.
Cite this entry: “precaution.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/precaution. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.