incaution

plural incautions

1. uncountableusuallyA lack of caution.

   Lest through incaution failing, thou mayst be / A joy to others, a reproach to me.

   1720, Alexander Pope, translating Homer, The Iliad, Book 23, Adamant 2000, p. 473

   2 more examples

   Little did the members of the expedition, little did the cheering spectators on that exciting day divine the strange neglects, the strange incautions, and the consequent disasters and deaths […]

   1865, William Howitt, The History of Discovery in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand

   It always felt as though Hain's career, which began so powerfully with his youthful campaigning against apartheid, was going to come unstuck, but through political incaution, not financial incompetence.

   2008 January 24, “The Maverick Insider”, in The Guardian