Meanings
- Used as a warning to anyone purchasing something that there may be unforeseen problems or faults with the item that is purchased.
1 more example
In an email she wrote that the lack of regulation “leads to difficulty extrapolating available evidence to various products on the consumer market given the differences in chemical composition and purity.” She cautioned the public to weigh “both potential benefits and risks,” to which I would add caveat emptor — buyer beware.
2021 March 8, Jane E. Brody, “Medical Marijuana Is Not Regulated as Most Medicines Are”, in The New York Times
Origin
- Latincaveat“may he / she / subject-noun beware”
- Englishcaveat emptor
Latin for “buyer beware”; from Latin caveat (“may he / she / subject-noun beware”), the third-person subjunctive of caveō (“to beware”) + ēmptor (“buyer”).
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
caveat emptor. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/caveat%20emptor
“caveat emptor.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/caveat%20emptor. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “caveat emptor,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/caveat%20emptor.
Source: caveat emptor on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.