Word of the Day ·

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carefully

care·ful·ly

UK/ˈkɛːf(ə)li/US/ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/

adverb

What it means

  1. obsoleteSorrowfully.

    […] there was she faine / To call them all in order to her ayde, / And them conjure, upon eternall paine, / To counsell her, so carefully dismayd, / How she might heale her sonne […]

    1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  2. With care; attentively, circumspectly.

    He carefully avoided the subject all evening.

    4 more examples

    As he was a politician, he discussed all subjects carefully, not offending anyone.

    He carefully studied the papers, while planning his next move.

    Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean. ¶ There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

    1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0091

    In practice, only about a third of people who microdose carefully measure the amount of the psychedelic they are taking; most take just enough to begin feeling some effects, which usually start after an hour and last four to six hours.

    2022 February 28, Dana G. Smith, “More People Are Microdosing for Mental Health. But Does It Work?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 12 Mar 2022
  3. Conscientiously, painstakingly, fastidiously, meticulously.

In a sentence

[…] there was she faine / To call them all in order to her ayde, / And them conjure, upon eternall paine, / To counsell her, so carefully dismayd, / How she might heale her sonne […]

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Where it comes from

  1. Old Englishcarfullīċe
  2. Middle Englishcarfulli
  3. Englishcarefully

From Middle English carfulli, carefulliche, from Old English carfullīċe, ċearfullīċe (“carefully, diligently”), equivalent to careful + -ly.

Full entry for carefully →

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