Meaning of wary in English

wary

adjective

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/ˈweə.ri/ us

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/ˈwer.i/

not completely trusting or certain about something or someone:

I'm a little wary of/about giving people my address when I don't know them very well.

Synonyms

cautious

leery informal

Opposite

unwary

More examples

All authors need to be wary of inadvertent copying of other people's ideas.
The legal system is full of snares for those who are not wary.
Tourists should be wary, as pickpockets are known to operate in this area.
Buyers should be wary of hidden costs when purchasing their holiday.
The teacher was wary of giving his pupils too much information at once.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Cautious and vigilant

See more results »

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Doubt & ambivalence

Related words

warily

wariness

(Definition of wary from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

wary | American Dictionary

wary

adjective

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

/ˈweər·i/

careful because you do not completely trust someone or something or are not certain about what you should do:

Teachers are often wary of standardized tests.

(Definition of wary from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of wary

wary

Both studied cervids are wary, secretive and solitary animals.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The military is wary of the religious public infringing on its turf.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

More examples Fewer examples

Although we are wary of the term "emergence," it crops up in the titles of two commentaries and in the text of a third.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Meanwhile, future modeling work should fully exploit the richness of reading eye movements and be wary of the limitations of aggregated data.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Currently, decision makers may be wary of cost-effectiveness data or economic modeling presented by the pharmaceutical industry in support of new products.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Historians of ideas are wary about the concept of diffusion, especially of diffusion across national borders.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

He is wary of drawing any large conclusions from what he informs the reader has been twenty years of collecting seasonal artefacts and information.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

They were generally wary of the emotive language of nationhood, emphasizing instead the importance of democratic, liberal, and civic values based on reason.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The electoral culture inherited by the revolutionaries made no provision for declared candidates and contemporaries were equally wary of canvassing for votes.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Also, a more rounded view of privacy would also be wary of assuming that surveillance necessarily leads to totalitarian systems of control.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

People with assets to lose were wary about moving too many of them on to the newly occupied areas.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These citizens are also extremely wary of truly contested discussions, those that both admit and seriously examine different viewpoints.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Communities become wary of the stranger in a crime-ridden society and non-state policing is the method chosen by many for securing exclusion.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Sequence stratigraphy is a discipline swamped in terminology, making many wary.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

One should be wary, in other words, of equating intentions with causes.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Translations of wary

in Chinese (Traditional)

謹慎的, 小心翼翼的…

Meaning of wary in English

Related words

wary | American Dictionary

Examples of wary

Translations of wary

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