Precaution
nounA measure taken in advance to prevent harm, danger, or trouble.
How to spell precaution
10 letters · 3 syllables
3 of the 34 people asked to spell precaution in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.
How to pronounce precaution
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does precaution mean?
- nounA measure taken in advance to prevent harm, danger, or trouble.
Precaution in a sentence
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Locking the back door at night is a sensible precaution.
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As a precaution, the electrician switched off the mains before starting work.
Where does precaution come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This word traces back to the Late Latin praecautio, a noun formed from the verb praecavere, which combined prae, meaning 'before' or 'beforehand', with cavere, meaning 'to beware' or 'to take care'. The literal idea was therefore 'a taking of care in advance', exactly the modern sense. English picked it up in the early 1600s, most likely by way of the French precaution, which carried the same meaning of guarding against trouble before it happens. The cavere root is a quiet relative of several other careful words, including 'caution' itself and the legal warning 'caveat', meaning 'let him beware'. Keeping that pre- (before) plus caution in mind is the surest way to spell it, since the trouble usually comes from blurring the unstressed first syllable.
How the word is built
- pre- (before)
- caut (from Latin cavere, to beware or take care)
- -ion (noun suffix)
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