prudence

1. 1.

   discretion in practical affairs

   Antonymsimprudence

   Broaderdiscretionnatural virtue

   Narrowerprovidencefrugality
2. 2.

   knowing how to avoid embarrassment or distress

   “the servants showed great tact and discretion”

   Synonymsdiscretiondiscreetnesscircumspection

   Broadersagacity

   Narrowerconfidentiality

Other forms of prudence

plural

prudences·

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 prudence

What does prudence mean?

prudence means "discretion in practical affairs". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in prudence?

prudence has 2 syllables: pru-dence. The stress falls on "pru". In IPA it is /ˈpɹudəns/.

What is another word for prudence?

Close synonyms include discretion, discreetness, circumspection. 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 prudence?

The recorded antonyms are imprudence.

Is prudence a common word?

prudence 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.

What rhymes with prudence?

1 word rhymes with prudence. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.