cautionary tale

plural cautionary tales

1. idiomaticA story, originally told in folklore, to warn its audience of a certain danger.

   This tone has slowly given way to a realization that the country’s experience might be less a curiosity than a cautionary tale.

   2018 November 13, Kate Julian, “Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex?”, in The Atlantic

   1 more example

   And Harford’s book, of course, has more than a decade of fresh cautionary tales from our troubled era of social media, big data, algorithmic mayhem, and “alternative facts” on which to draw.

   2020 November 17, Ben Chu, “Review: How to Make the World Add Up, by Tim Harford”, in The Independent, retrieved 13 Jan 2021