Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Cautious; wary; provident: as, “cautelous though young,”
  • Cunning; treacherous; wily.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Caution; prudent; wary.
  • adjective obsolete Crafty; deceitful; false.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective obsolete Skillful in trickery or deception; cunning, wily.
  • adjective obsolete Cautious, careful.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French cauteleux.

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Examples

  • Verily, I can only say in answer, that I have been cautelous in quoting mine authorities.

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian 2007

  • Yet being subtill, crafty, and cautelous, he wrought so on the flexible nature of Ferando, that hee brought his wife with him divers dayes to the Monasterie; where they walked in the goodly Garden, discoursing on the beatitudes of eternall life, as also the most holy deedes of men and women, long since departed out of this life, in mervailous civill and modest manner.

    The Decameron 2004

  • And that you may give the more credit to the validity of this opinion, consider how the cautelous and wily tempter did commemorate unto her, for an antecedent to his enthymeme, the prohibition which was made to taste it, as being desirous to infer from thence, It is forbidden thee; therefore thou shouldst eat of it, else thou canst not be a woman.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • And that you may give the more credit to the validity of this opinion, consider how the cautelous and wily tempter did commemorate unto her, for an antecedent to his enthymeme, the prohibition which was made to taste it, as being desirous to infer from thence, It is forbidden thee; therefore thou shouldst eat of it, else thou canst not be a woman.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • A good cautelous provision indeed, that so in the time of their saganship they might gain experience in the laws and rituals, and might be the better fitted for the high priest's chair.

    From the Talmud and Hebraica 1602-1675 1979

  • For the mind when it is wary and cautelous, and by way of diligent circumspection turneth herself many ways, may then as well be said to go straight on to the object, as when it useth no such circumspection.

    Meditations Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

  • "_A Recantation of an Ill-led Life_, or a discovery of the highway law, as also many _cautelous_ admonitions, and ful instructions how to know, shun, and apprehende a _thiefe_, most necessary for all honest travellers to peruse, observe, and practice; written by _John Clavel_, gent."

    The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 354, January 31, 1829 Various

  • For the consequences, and issues that do or must follow upon the taking, be also cautelous; take heed that after this heart-engagement to God, none start back like a broken bow.

    The Covenants And The Covenanters Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation Various 1876

  • The heir-at-law to the estate, now that the Esquire's son was dead, watched her madness with a cautelous avaricious desire.

    The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave among the moors... George Augustus Sala 1861

  • A man "full cautelous," as was said of Louis XI., for instance, could apply that special faculty in every direction, but to-day the single quality is subdivided, and every profession has its special craft.

    Lost Illusions Honor�� de Balzac 1824

Comments

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  • "Believe't not lightly,--though I go alone,

    Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen

    Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen,--your son

    Will or exceed the common or be caught

    With cautelous baits and practice."

    - William Shakespeare, 'The Tragedy of Coriolanus'.

    August 28, 2009

  • It's an odd pair of definitions for this word. It could serve to characterize both the grifter and his elusive quarry.

    A cautelous is a wily man
    And cautelous too if wary.
    He’s certain to deceive himself
    And find that very scary.

    March 11, 2014