Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Giving or serving as a warning; admonitory: a cautionary tale; cautionary advice.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Containing a caution, or warning to avoid danger: as, cautionary advice.
- Given as a pledge or in security.
- And it is resolved that it [a benevolence raised for the crown in Devon] shall only be employed for the payment of his debts, as namely for Ireland, the Navy, and the Cautionary Towns in the Low Countries; and so, leaving the carriage of this business to your discretions and wisdoms, we bid you heartily farewell.
- n. Same as cautionry.
Wiktionary
- adj. Serving to caution or warn; admonitory
- adj. Serving to ward off; preventive
- adj. obsolete Held as security or hostage
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Conveying a caution, or warning to avoid danger.
- adj. Given as a pledge or as security.
- adj. obsolete Wary; cautious.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. warding off
- adj. serving to warn
Examples
“He looked guardedly up and down the road, his expression cautionary now, one white man to another.”
“The Partnership has listed some of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in such forward-looking statements, which I refer to as cautionary statements and its earnings press release which can be viewed on the company's website on subsequent, written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the partnership or person acting on this behalf are especially qualified in their entirety by such cautionary statements.”
“Calce and journalist Craig Silverman are releasing "Mafiaboy: How I Cracked the Internet and Why It's Still Broken," which he describes as a cautionary tale that looks at his hacking past as well as the current state of personal security on the Internet.”
“This is a story is your basic Frankenstein cautionary tale of science uncontrolled, and the dangerous consequences when the creation turns on the master.”
“Web design project from hell immortalized in cautionary webcomic”
“Although she's right, Florence is a slow learner who takes a long time to recall a cautionary phrase — "hurt people hurt people" — that she picked up along her painful way.”
The Wall Street Journal: 'Greenberg': Losers' Winning Love Story
“Mvela spokesman James Wellsted said the companies were trading under a so-called cautionary statement to the Johannesburg securities exchange and were unable to give further details on the talks.”
“Cuaron has with co-writers Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby taken what has been described as a cautionary tale and transformed it into a thought-provoking action flick.”
Children of Men and The Pursuit of Happyness: Movies That Entertain and Provoke Thought!
“That is why Sheila and David Rothman have called their cautionary new book The Pursuit of Perfection.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cautionary’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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GCI
spinster, maiden, happy-go-lucky, homonym, ill-at-ease, saw red, out of sorts, hot under the collar, taken aback, pen-names, alias, shoelaces and 378 more...
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OED word of the Day
Just like it says
majority, plasm, apal, statin, legerdemain, leap year, daffodil, maternal, key worker, jojoba, skelf, pose and 101 more...
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_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1707 more...
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Words used in Decemberist songs
dirigible, palanquin, ventricle, mariner, bayonet, tamaracks, parapet, chaparral, magistrate, concubines, odalisque, cinnamon and 52 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cautionary.
travismcdermott 1597 SIR F. VERE Comm. (1657) 70 The ordinary Garrison of the cautionary towns. 1611 SPEED Hist. Gt. Brit. IX. viii. (1632) 556 That..all his cautionary Lords should be released. Jul 24, 2008