careful

comparative more careful · superlative most careful · alternative obsolete carefull

1. Taking care; attentive to potential danger, error or harm; cautious.

   He was a slow and careful driver.

   2 more examples

   Be very careful (while) trekking through the jungle.

   John Aubrey Douglass, a senior research fellow at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at Berkeley, said that while he was not an insider on admissions practices, “my sense is that admissions is highly regulated and careful to stay clear of Prop 209 restrictions, and the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action.”

   2025 February 3, Anemona Hartocollis, “The University of California Increased Diversity. Now It’s Being Sued.”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Feb 2025

2. Conscientious and painstaking; meticulous.

   They made a careful search of the crime scene.

   1 more example

   At the same time, we were cognisant that careful scholars should never solely rely on their own impressionistic observations, and, that our own impressions were inexact and not capable of being quantified.

   2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 7

3. obsoleteFull of care or grief; sorrowful, sad.
4. obsoleteFull of cares or anxiety; worried, troubled.

   Where through long watch, and late daies weary toile, / She soundly slept, and carefull thoughts did quite assoile.

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