Chary

WORD OF THE DAY

chary / CHAIR-ee / adjective

Definition

1 : hesitant and vigilant about dangers and risks

2 : slow to grant, accept, or expend

Examples

"Alexander Graham Bell didn't expect his telephone to be widely used for prank calls. And Steve Jobs was chary of children using his iThings." — Hayley Krischer, The New York Times, 7 Sept. 2017

"An A-1 writer but also chary with spoken words, he told me: 'I don't own a computer. I write longhand. In notebooks. It's then typed up. Retyped until I feel I've got it.'" 

— Cindy Adams, The New York Post, 2 Aug. 2017

Did You Know?

It was sorrow that bred the caution of chary. In Middle English chary meant "sorrowful," a sense that harks back to the word's Old English ancestor caru (an early form of care, and another term that originally meant "sorrow" or "grief"). 

In a sense switch that demonstrates that love can be both bitter and sweet, chary later came to mean "dear" or "cherished." That's how 16th-century English dramatist George Peele used it: "the chariest and the choicest queen, That ever did delight my royal eyes." 

Both sorrow and affection have largely faded from chary, however, and in Modern English the word is most often used as a synonym of either careful or sparing.