Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Giving or serving as a warning; admonitory.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 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.
  • noun Same as cautionry.

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

  • adjective Conveying a caution, or warning to avoid danger.
  • adjective Given as a pledge or as security.
  • adjective obsolete Wary; cautious.

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

  • adjective Serving to caution or warn; admonitory
  • adjective Serving to ward off; preventive
  • adjective obsolete Held as security or hostage

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective warding off
  • adjective serving to warn

Etymologies

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Examples

  • He looked guardedly up and down the road, his expression cautionary now, one white man to another.

    Jolie Blon’s Bounce James Lee Burke 2002

  • He looked guardedly up and down the road, his expression cautionary now, one white man to another.

    Dave Robicheaux Ebook Boxed Set James Lee Burke 2002

  • He looked guardedly up and down the road, his expression cautionary now, one white man to another.

    Jolie Blon’s Bounce James Lee Burke 2002

  • He looked guardedly up and down the road, his expression cautionary now, one white man to another.

    Jolie Blon’s Bounce James Lee Burke 2002

  • He looked guardedly up and down the road, his expression cautionary now, one white man to another.

    Dave Robicheaux Ebook Boxed Set James Lee Burke 2002

  • He looked guardedly up and down the road, his expression cautionary now, one white man to another.

    Jolie Blon’s Bounce James Lee Burke 2002

  • 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.

    SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2010

  • 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.

    Macleans.ca 2008

  • This is a story is your basic Frankenstein cautionary tale of science uncontrolled, and the dangerous consequences when the creation turns on the master.

    Lucky number “9″ » Scene-Stealers 2009

  • Web design project from hell immortalized in cautionary webcomic

    Boing Boing 2009

Comments

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  • 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.

    July 25, 2008