cautious

1. 1.

   people who are fearful and cautious

   “whitewater rafting is not for the timid”

   Synonymstimid

   Broaderpeople

Other forms of cautious

plural

cautiouses·

comparative

cautiouser·

superlative

cautiousest·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about cautious

What does cautious mean?

cautious means "showing careful forethought". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in cautious?

cautious has 2 syllables: cau-tious. The stress falls on "cau". In IPA it is /ˈkɔʃəs/.

What is another word for cautious?

Close synonyms include conservative, timid. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of cautious?

The recorded antonyms are incautious.

Is cautious a common word?

cautious is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.