Word of the Day for Saturday, August 29, 2009

chary \CHAIR-ee\, adjective:

1. Wary; cautious.
2. Not giving or expending freely; sparing.

What do you suppose the Founding Fathers, so chary of overweening government power, would make of a prosecutor with virtually unlimited reach and a staff the size of a small town?
-- "U.S. trampling rights at home and abroad", Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 17, 1998

Investors should be chary, however, for the returns are far from sizzling.
-- "The Stampede Into Variable Annuities", Fortune, October 13, 1986

Bankers, consulted as to whether or not they believed that the full force of the decline had spent its fury, were chary of predictions.
-- "Leaders See Fear Waning", New York Times, October 30, 1929

Chary comes from Old English cearig, "careful, sorrowful," from cearu, "grief, sorrow, care."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for chary

Yesterday's Word - Previous Words - Help

Become a fan of Dictionary.com on Facebook.
Word of the Day, interesting words, Dictionary.com news, and more!

Dictionary.com Word of the Day http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/	You are currently subscribed to Dictionary.com Word of the Day as: mayorjfvalley@gmail.com
To unsubscribe: http://lists.lexico.com/u?id=6044678G&n=T&l=wordoftheday&o=14322614	To subscribe to Word of the Day by email, please send a blank message to: join-wordoftheday@lists.lexico.com
©2009 by Dictionary.com, LLC. 555 12th Street Suite 500 Oakland CA 94607	Subscriptions to The Word of the Day can be turned on and off via the Web at http://www.dictionary.com/help/faq/wordoftheday/
	Tell a friend about The Word of the Day!