Cautioned

How to spell cautioned

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cautioned

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cautioned mean?

1. verbWarned someone to be careful, or advised them against a particular course of action.

Cautioned in a sentence

• The manager cautioned staff against sharing passwords by email.

• The doctor cautioned him that the medication could cause drowsiness.

Where does cautioned come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb cavere, meaning 'to beware' or 'to take heed', which produced the noun cautio (in its accusative form cautionem) for a 'taking of care' or a legal pledge of security. English borrowed the noun 'caution' through Old French in the 1300s, where it first carried the sense of a guarantee or bond before settling into the modern meaning of wariness and prudent care. The verb 'to caution', meaning to warn someone, grew out of that noun in the 1600s, and 'cautioned' is simply its regular past tense. A useful spelling clue lives in the same Latin family: words like 'cave' in the old warning 'caveat' and 'precaution' all share the cavere root, so the 'caut' opening stays steady even when the ending changes. The 'tion' in the middle behaves like the 'tion' in 'caution' itself, which keeps the spelling regular despite the soft 'sh' sound it makes.

How the word is built

• caut- (from Latin cavere: to beware, take heed)
• -ion (noun-forming)
• -ed (past tense)