precaution

1. 1.

   a precautionary measure warding off impending danger or damage or injury etc.

   “he put an ice pack on the injury as a precaution”

   “an insurance policy is a good safeguard”

   “we let our guard down”

   Synonymssafeguardguard

   Broadermeasure

   Narrowerbackstopsecurity
2. 2.

   the trait of practicing caution in advance

   Broadercircumspection
3. 3.

   judiciousness in avoiding harm or danger

   “he exercised caution in opening the door”

   “he handled the vase with care”

   Synonymscautioncareforethought

   Broaderjudiciousness

Other forms of precaution

plural

precautions·

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 precaution

What does precaution mean?

precaution means "a precautionary measure warding off impending danger or damage or injury etc.". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in precaution?

precaution has 3 syllables: pre-cau-tion. The stress falls on "cau". In IPA it is /pɹiˈkɔʃən/.

What is another word for precaution?

Close synonyms include safeguard, guard, caution, care, forethought. 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.

Is precaution a common word?

precaution 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.