careful

• carefull (obsolete)

From Middle English careful, from Old English carful; equivalent to care +‎ -ful.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛːfəl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛ(ə)ɹfəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛː(ɹ)fəl, -ɛəɹfəl

careful (comparative more careful or carefuller, superlative most careful or carefullest)

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

   He was a slow and careful driver.

   Be very careful while trekking through the jungle.

2. Conscientious and painstaking; meticulous.

   They made a careful search of the crime scene.

   • 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:

     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.

3. (obsolete) Full of care or grief; sorrowful, sad.
4. (obsolete) Full of cares or anxiety; worried, troubled.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

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

• See also Thesaurus:cautious
• See also Thesaurus:meticulous

• careless

• “careful”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• careful in Britannica Dictionary
• careful in Macmillan Collocations Dictionary
• careful in Ozdic collocation dictionary
• careful in WordReference English Collocations

• acreful