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noun
Wariness  n.  The quality or state of being wary; care to foresee and guard against evil; cautiousness. "An almost reptile wariness." "To determine what are little things in religion, great wariness is to be used."
Synonyms: Caution; watchfulness; circumspection; foresight; care; vigilance; scrupulousness.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wariness" Quotes from Famous Books



... simplicity; we find the lofty regal style mingled with his familiar bonhommie. Warm, hasty, and volatile, yet with the most patient zeal to disentangle involved deception; such gravity in sense, such levity in humour; such wariness and such indiscretion; such mystery and such openness—all these must have often thrown his Majesty into some awkward dilemmas. He was a man of abstract speculation in the theory of human affairs; too witty or too aphoristic, he never seemed at a loss to decide, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... of the two authorities who had the matter in hand, the Signoria and the Operai, as who should say the working committee, and who made a hundred difficulties and shook their wise heads, and considered one foolish and futile plan after another with true burgher hesitation and wariness. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... position quite as well as the more ingenuous confidence of the United States negotiator; an observation interesting chiefly as showing the eagerness on the one side, whose contention was the weaker in all save right, and the wariness on the other, upon whom present possession and naval power conferred a marked advantage in making a bargain. By 1860, however, the restorations had been made, and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty since then has remained the international agreement, ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire (Gehennae)." Matt. v. 22. It is emphatic, cogent, and well calculated for the purpose of impression; but is inconsistent with the supposition of art or wariness on the part of ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... of the miserable creature who had usurped the place I wished to fill, and who might be the means of my having to fall back after all on the Deserted Cats' Fund. What bungling puss had had him under her paws, and allowed him to escape with a torn ear and the wariness of experience? Let me but once catch sight ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... confine his surmise to the region of the comparative. Nevertheless, he knew that he was gaining upon the moose and that was enough. But as it was evident by his frequent browsing that the animal was going slowly, he controlled his eagerness sufficiently to exercise great wariness on his own part. It might be that while he was hunting he could also become the hunted. It was not at all impossible that the warriors of Tandakora would fall upon his own ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... of dogs and aboriginal trackers, Marulitch made straight for the Louvre. There he had quitted the trail, and there must he pick it up again. But the hunt demanded the utmost wariness. If he startled the quarry, he might fail at the outset, and, supposing his talking was successful, both he and Beliani must still beware of a King's vengeance ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... and indignation were now laid aside. His tone and looks betokened the deepest distress. All the firmness, reluctance, and wariness of my temper vanished in a moment. My heart was seized with an agony of compunction. I came close to him, and, taking his hand involuntarily, said, "Dear brother, ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... played his part of a wild young cowpuncher ready for any mischief, but beneath his obtuse good humor Flandrau covered a vigilant wariness. Soapy held all the good cards now, but if he stayed in the game some of them would come to him. Then he would show Mr. Stone whether he would have everything ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... city, the village in which Milton found his first wife, and where Mickle afterwards found his in the daughter of his landlord. By the end of 1775, his translation was completed and published at Oxford, with a numerous list of subscribers. Experience had not yet taught him wariness in his approaches to his patron. At the suggestion of his relative, Commodore Johnstone, in an unlucky moment he inscribed his book to the Duke of Buccleugh. This nobleman had declared his acceptance of the dedication in a manner so ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... company of spearmen did they grant, That honoured I might walk, nor unaware Die by some secret thrust and on this land Bring down the curse of death, that dieth not. Such boons they gave me: it behoves me pay A deeper reverence from a soul sincere. Ye, to the many words of wariness Spoken by me your father, add this word, That, tried by time, our unknown company Be held for honest: over-swift are tongues To slander strangers, over-light is speech To bring pollution on a stranger's name. Therefore I rede you, bring ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... deeply interested and motionless faces. Then he continued: "On what you and others do in these days depends what shall come upon us. Let no man deceive you, not even the timid counsel of gray hairs or the wariness of wealth. The guinea fears; the penny fights; and the poor penny is to-day deeply concerned. You take shelter under the law of Christ, to live, as far as possible, at peace with all men. As far as possible? It should at times be felt that Paul's limitation is also a command. Do not ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... hard wariness covered the eyes of the boy as he looked across in the darkness at the other man. "He's got friends," was the dry, noncommittal answer that came to the range-rider after a moment's ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... fiery Mar-Prelate was another, the learned subtile John Udall. His was the spirit which dared to do all that Penry had dared, yet conducting himself in the heat of action with the tempered wariness of age: "If they silence me as a minister," said he, "it will allow me leisure to write; and then I will give the bishops such a blow as shall make their hearts ache." It was agreed among the party neither to deny, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... unnecessary—it might even be improper. It is my duty to explain every thing to my father, and he may wish to know why thou hast not always appeared what thou art. Do not fancy, Sigismund, that I distrust thy motive, but the wariness of the old and the confidence of the young have so little in common!—I would rather ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... themselves secret; then they look behind them carefully enough. The situation was one of stringent torment to a professional and natural spy. Luigi lost count of minutes in his irritation at the mystery, which he took as a personal offence. Some suspicion or wariness existed in the lighted room, for the maestro threw up a window, and inspected the street to right and left. Apparently satisfied he withdrew his head, and the window ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... say I enjoy almost anything I get involved in." Barney, still smiling, felt a touch of wariness. He'd been expecting questions from McAllen, but ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz

... der School was a well-educated man, but of slow comprehension, who had imbibed a wariness in his speeches and actions, from having suffered by his collisions with his more mercurial and apt brethren who had laid the foundations of their practice in the Eastern courts, and who had sucked in shrewdness with their mothers milk. The caution ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... ditch-digging. He was disappointed. But he found ample compensation in the fact that here was one of the much-discussed and sometimes doubted canals, actually in process of construction. He knew he could outdo the beavers in their own game of wariness and watchfulness. He made up his mind he would lie out that very night, on the hillside close by—and so patiently, so unstirringly, that the beavers would never suspect the eager eyes ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... sound. My heart beat so fast that I could almost hear it. The night was very dark. A thin mist-like drizzle was falling; in fact the weather conditions were absolutely perfect for my purpose. With utmost wariness I allowed myself to drop from the window-ledge on to the soft ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... bonefish in twos and fours and droves. We passed school after school. They had just come in from the sea, for they were headed up the flat. I saw many ten-pound fish, but I did not know enough about bonefish then to appreciate what I saw. However, I did appreciate their keen sight and wariness and wonderful speed and incredible power. Some of the big surges made me speculate what a heavy bonefish might do to light tackle. Sam and I were disappointed at our luck, somewhat uncertain whether it was caused by destructive ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... silence he turned and marched towards the monster. But possibly the palpable wariness of his companions had an effect upon him that weighed more than his previous experience, for suddenly, when near to the monster, he halted dubiously. But his playmates immediately uttered a derisive shout, and it seemed to force him forward. He went to the ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... from the rim of the ledge and looked at him; warily, as he looked at it. With the wariness was something like question, ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... echoed by thousands who did not know whether Phalaris ruled in Sicily or in Siam. His spirit, daring even to rashness, self- confident even to negligence, and proud even to insolent ferocity, was awed for the first and for the last time, awed, not into meanness or cowardice, but into wariness and sobriety. For once he ran no risks; he left no crevice unguarded; he wantoned in no paradoxes; above all, he returned no railing for the railing of his enemies. In almost everything that he has written we can discover proofs of genius and learning. But it is only here that his ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... usurped an absolute command over the whole inn. It was all in vain to attempt to withstand his authority. He was not exactly quarrelsome, but boisterous and peremptory, like one accustomed to tyrannize on a quarter-deck; and there was a dare-devil[1] air about everything he said and did that inspired wariness in all bystanders. Even the half-pay officer, so long the hero of the club, was soon silenced by him, and the quiet burghers stared with wonder at seeing their inflammable man of war so readily and ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... had produced in his mind a feeling of uneasiness. So far as his personal preference was concerned he would have been well satisfied if some cub reporter had been given the job. Try as he would, however, he could offer no tangible reason for the sudden wariness. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... of Captain Price— his quiet, unresting watchfulness. Forty years of sun and brine had bunched the puckers at the corners of his eyes and hardened the lines of his big brown face; but the outstanding thing about him was still that silent wariness, as of a man who had warning of something impending. It went a little strangely with his figure of a massive, steel-and-hickory shipmaster, soaked to the soul with the routine of his calling. It seemed to give token of some faculty ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... He had expected evasion, denial, anything but a bold acceptance of his challenge. His foe watched the wariness settle upon him by ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... next evening Quentin and Savage found themselves in the rooms occupied by the prince, the former experiencing a distinct sense of wariness and caution. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... he grew blind, lost count, was carried away. His persistent refusal of a better place also profited him in that it brought to Ensign Sand and the other "officers" the divination that he was one of those shyly anxious souls who have to be enticed into the Kingdom of Heaven with wariness, and they made a great pretence of not noticing him, going on with the exercises just as if he were not there, a consideration which he was able richly to enhance when the plate came round. After his first contribution, Mrs. Sand regarded his spiritual interests with almost superstitious ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... was only wise to maintain silence at the expense of perilous amenities, and as fully justified in those secret and solitary sorties which made bad blood in my veins. He was far cleverer than I at getting in and out; but even had I been his match for stealth and wariness, my company would have doubled every risk. I admit now that he treated me with quite as much sympathy as common caution would permit. But at the time I took it so badly as to ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... from the ship was still considerable; but a peculiar hat, with the aid of the glass, left no doubt of his identity. The attorney pointed out the boat to the officer, and the latter, after a look through the glass, gave a nod of approbation. Exultation overcame the usual wariness of the attorney, for his pride, too, had got to be enlisted in the success of his speculation,—men being so strangely constituted as often to feel as much joy in the accomplishment of schemes that are unjustifiable, as in the accomplishment of those of which they may have reason ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... coolness of both men; for Grimes was by no means inflated with the boisterous triumph of his party—nor did Denis get into a blind rage on being knocked down. They approached again, their eyes kindled into savage fury, tamed down into the wariness of experienced combatants; for a short time they stood eyeing each other, as if calculating upon the contingent advantages of attack or defence. This was a moment of great interest; for, as their huge and powerful frames stood out in opposition, strung and dilated by the impulse of passion and ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... herds moved to one side as I passed through them, the little orthopi evincing the greatest wariness and galloping to safest distances. All the animals stopped feeding as I approached, and after moving to what they considered a safe distance stood contemplating me with serious eyes and up-cocked ears. Once one of the old bull antelopes ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and as he was generally somewhat stupefied on rising by the drink he had taken the night before, and by the congested brain which the heaviness of such sleep produced, he could not at first believe that Cutts had altogether abandoned the enterprise—rather thought that, with his habitual wariness, that Ulysses of the Profession had gone forth to collect further information in the neighbourhood of the proposed scene of action. He was not fully undeceived in this belief till somewhat late in the day, when, strolling into the stable-yard, the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a sudden feeling of puzzled wariness surging over him. For an instant the girl hesitated. Then she went on in a soft ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... them over the world. In the center, the silent and patient firmness of the Breton [Headnote 2], who yet, in the hour of danger, could display a quite sublime eccentricity. And, lastly, the Norman [Headnote 3] wariness, considerately courageous; daring all, but daring all for success. Such was the beauty of man, in that ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... their side by her marriage. Mary's jealousy, and Elizabeth's own determination not to be made a tool, frustrated Philip's attempt to marry the princess to his cousin, the Duke of Savoy; and when the Protestant Swedes clandestinely offered her the hand of Prince Eric, her discreet wariness again protected her ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... is that Boveney Weir is full of "rum uns." This I take to be a confession of faith in the existence of large trout, and at the same time a delicate compliment to their wariness. All Thames trout are wary, and it is probably their outrageous artfulness which adds to the rapture of circumventing them. Old Nottingham George would tell many a tale of cunning trout which had been angled for so often and pricked so many times that they were supposed to have become as learned ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... In the old days of Indian warfare,"—both boys gave a quick start of increased attention—"the very finest men and the most to be trusted were the scouts. They were men of great bravery, of undaunted loyalty, of great wariness, and filled with the spirit of dashing adventure. They were men who took their lives in their own hands. Going before the main body of the army, single-handed, if need be, they would stave off the attacks of Indian foes and would do battle with outposts and ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... men and women that trailed out of a small circular hole in the ground. Drab as dock-rats, and pasty pale of countenance as hospital inmates, and with bent backs and dirty, tattered clothes and a mouse-like nosing manner, they emerged with the wariness of hunted refugees; and they flung up their hands with low cries to shield them from the brilliance of the sun, to which they were evidently unaccustomed. From the packs on their backs and the bundles in their hands, I knew that they were emerging from their ...
— Flight Through Tomorrow • Stanton Arthur Coblentz

... Basin has been inhabited by civilized men since long before modern engineering evolved. Possibly early town-builders' wariness of floods contributed to the fact that the problem of flood damages here, though quite real, is somewhat less severe than in certain other sections of the nation. At specific points of concentrated flood plain development—Petersburg, ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... rushed against this human barricade bristling with spear points. Again and again he was repulsed, often with severe wounds to caution him to greater wariness. From head to foot he was red with his own blood, and at last, weakening from the loss of it, he came to the bitter realization that alone he could do no more ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... cried the elder between his clenched teeth. "I'll have him yet;" and, thinking to deceive the animal's wariness by pretending to give up the chase, he sat down in one of the nests of the albatross, whence he could command a good view around of the several thickets of grass and brushwood, asking Eric to continue driving the goats towards him while he lay ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Mackenzie by many rods than Hall, but still so far away that his shots went wide, whistling high over Mackenzie's head, or kicking dirt among the shrubs at either hand. Hall was charging down on Reid again, but with a wariness that held him off a distance ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... not fairly out of their teens, and committed to their own discretion in the huge motley world of London, had been solemnly charged to behave with the greatest wariness. She was to treat every man or woman she encountered well-nigh as a dangerous enemy in disguise till her suspicions were proved to be misplaced, and the stranger shown to Rose's satisfaction and that of her seniors and guardians ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... also a man of swift decisions and resource, and he knew this was no time to lose his head, nor even to play a waiting game. And he must tread warily. Impulsive as he was by nature he could be as wary as a Red Indian when wariness would serve his purpose. He called up Mr. Dinwiddie on the telephone and asked if he might see him at once. It was only half past nine and Mr. Dinwiddie was just finishing his breakfast in bed, but he told his favorite cordially ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... and she felt as if she had been inconsistent with her constant professions of wariness ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... adhesion to conservative methods which caused him to blunder in his treatment of Colwyn's information about the missing necklace. He rarely acted on impulse. His habitual distrust of humanity was deep, and to it was wedded a wariness which was the heritage of long experience. But his obstinate conviction of Hazel Rath's guilt led him to make a false move in his effort to square the loss of the necklace with the evidence against the girl. His own poor opinion of human nature hindered him from seeing, as Colwyn had ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... marvel to me that thou shouldst," replied Mr Underhill, a second time attacking the buttered eggs. "Mrs Avery, I hope you have more eggs in the house?—With all thy prudence, and cautiousness, and wariness, sweet Jack, thou earnest not off a whit better than thy rash and ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... annually broken down by elephants in all parts of Ceylon, is sufficient to show that, although in captivity, and when familiar with such structures, the tame ones may, and doubtless do, exhibit all the wariness attributed to them; yet, in a state of liberty, and whilst unaccustomed to such artificial appliances, their instincts are not sufficient to ensure their safety. Besides, the fact is adverted to elsewhere[2], ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... the Masudis, and once in China, he was in full possession of trained soldier senses. Darkness, he calculated instantly, was a shield to him who can use it, and a danger only to the unwary; and there are grades of wariness, just as ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... both emulation and love of honour.[802] But all other persons must especially avoid and fear that roundabout kind of self-praise. For since generally speaking censuring one's neighbours is disagreeable and barely tolerable and requires great wariness, he that mixes up his own praise with blame of another, and hunts for fame by defaming another, is altogether tiresome and inspires disgust, for he seems to wish to get credit through trying to prove ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... proposed searching the island for further traces, but advised wariness in so doing. They saw, however, no smoke nor canoes. The Indians had departed while they were searching the ravines and flats round Mount Ararat, and the lake told no tales, The following day they ventured to land on Long Island, and on going ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... wild ducks from eggs hatched under a common duck, and the young were allowed to cross freely both amongst themselves and with the tame ducks; they were "half wild and half tame; they came to the windows to be fed, but still they had a wariness about them quite remarkable." ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... that they were all working together to drift the conversation back to a safe topic. She followed the lead given her, but she made up her mind to know what it was about her neighbor, Mr. Bannister, the sheep herder, that needed to be handled with such wariness and ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... own on the brown carpet under a clump of pines. The dog, to join him, felt obliged to circle widely about the tennis court. He was much afraid of this tennis court, with its tiny round things that sometimes hit him. When near it he usually slunk along at a little sheep trot and with an eye of wariness upon it. ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... out their lifeblood. They take all things too vitally in earnest. Life is to them a wonderful, passionate, pathetic, terrible thing that the gods of love and of death shape for them. They do not see that coolness and craft, and the tact to seize accident, and the wariness to obtain advantage, do in reality far more in hewing out a successful future than all the gods of Greek or Gentile. They are very unwise. It is of no use to break their hearts for the world; they will not change it. La culte de l'humanite is the one of all others which ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... in the interior and eastern parts of Canada, and rarely in the upper Mississippi Valley. This species is very similar to the preceding, but is smaller; length 10.5 inches. It is also called the "Lesser Tell-tale," a name applied because of their wariness, and because, when they fly, they warn all other species within hearing, of danger. Their eggs are laid on the ground, and in similar localities to the preceding. They are three or four in number, grayish or buffy in color, and ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed

... hollow, but the master of the valley was called on to explain the cause. In one or two instances, boards were wrested violently from their fastenings, and the cavities beneath were explored, with a wariness that increased as the investigation proceeded ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... keeping." I was alarmed the following morning, Christmas Eve, 1881, to read in the newspapers of the arrest of this gentleman, and feared that my son would also fall into the hands of the police. But he had acted with wariness. Leaving the luggage behind him in the steamer, until he found how the land lay, he saw the people of the house, heard of the arrest, and at once made his own arrangements for supplying the Dublin newsagents, in which task ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... What were at this time his plans, and whether he had any plan, may well be doubted. His great object, apparently, was to keep himself, as long as possible, free to choose between several lines of action. Such, indeed, is commonly the policy of men who are, like him, distinguished rather by wariness than by farsightedness. It was probably not till he had been some days in the capital that he had made up his mind. The cry of the whole people was for a free Parliament; and there could be no doubt that a Parliament really free would instantly restore the exiled family. The ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... with the enemy, the English moved with even greater caution and wariness than before; for they had every reason to suspect, that, as he had suffered them to come thus far without molestation, he meant to meet them here, under shelter of his stronghold, with a resistance all the move determined. When come in sight, however, what was their ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... peculiarity—its increase is always opposed by lethal selection. The chances of life are reduced by reproducing, inasmuch as more danger is entailed by the extra activities of courtship, and later, in bearing and caring for the young, since these duties reduce the normal wariness of individual life. The reproductive rate, therefore, always remains at the lowest point which will suffice for the reproductive needs of the species. For this reason alone the non-sustentative form of selection might be expected to be ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... true of machines and men is also true of money. The old wariness of the French banker in underwriting industry is passing away. He is thinking in terms of large ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... Germany as well as for England) of preserving their main fighting fleets, may explain the wariness with which they were employed. Instead of risking them desperately, both sides turned to commerce warfare—the Western Powers resorting to blockade and the Germans to submarines. Each of these forms of warfare played a highly important ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... establishment as this; and the rewards and honours dispensed there are bestowed in proportion to the industry and good conduct of those who receive them. If the offences of freshmen outside the walls be unvisited by the university from wariness in the offenders, or the impossibility of controlling them, they are certain to meet with a just estimation of their demerit here; and, as before noticed, this is perhaps the best mode of repressing them. The ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... offence. He was in truth far better qualified to save a nation than to adorn a court. In the highest parts of statesmanship, he had no equal among his contemporaries. He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin. Two countries, the seats of civil liberty and of the Reformed Faith, had been preserved by his wisdom and courage from extreme perils. Holland he had delivered from foreign, and England from ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... from the hollow temples of the young man. The aspect of this personage was noble; his forehead was bold; his nose formed with that eagle curve which seems fashioned for command. The expression of his grey eyes denoted both resolution and wariness; whilst a general look of good temper and openness, which amounted almost to insouciance, pervaded the whole face. He was clothed in black. It was Henry of Navarre, the ill-used and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... particularly liked in an audible manner, and perspire upon his forehead. He was a studiously moderate drinker—except when the spirit of some public banquet or some great occasion caught him and bore him beyond his wariness—there he would, as it were, drink inadvertently and become flushed and talkative—about everything but ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... should be considered applicable to the Constitution of the Society and to that of the United States, we must attribute to the former a solemnity and importance which involve a palpable absurdity. To claim for it the verbal accuracy and the legal wariness of a mere contract is equally at war with common sense and the facts of the case; and even were it not so, the party to a bond who should attempt to escape its ethical obligation by a legal quibble of construction would be put in Coventry by all honest men. In point of fact, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... evening and night and morning of fever, subterfuge, wariness, aching. A round of half-ecstatic torment, out of which he seemed no more able to break than a man can break through the walls of a cell. . ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... as the Norman Conquest of England, certainly not later than 1095. To the twelfth he assigns (and it may be observed that, enthusiastic as M. Gautier is on the literary side, he shows on all questions of age, &c., a wariness not always exhibited by scholars more exclusively philological) Acquin, Aliscans, Amis et Amiles, Antioche Aspremont, Auberi le Bourgoing, Aye d'Avignon, the Bataille Loquifer, the oldest (now only known in Italian) form of ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... endowed with imbecility instead of a cast. Apart from him, they were all good-looking, despite the family defect; and they were all very reticent this morning. I seemed indeed to trace the father's wariness as well as the cast in each pair of ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... that holdeth the fisherman's seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all ages founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an accident it was good for that mother Church belike ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... lawbreaker Exuberant anticipatory trustfulness Fell to chatting upon the nothings agreeably and seriously Feminine; coming when she willed and flying when wanted Fire smoothes the creases Frankness as an armour over wariness Greater our successes, the greater the slaves we become Half designingly permitted her trouble to be seen Half a dozen dozen left Happy the woman who has not more to speak Hard to bear, at times unbearable Haremed opinion of the unfitness of women He sinks terribly when ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... kennel and shrinking back into its shadows. At the same moment that Blake's thick forefinger again prodded the buzzer-button at his desk end the watching woman could see the relapse into official wariness. It was as though he had put the shutters up in front of his soul. She accepted the movement as a signal of dismissal. She rose from her chair and quietly lowered and adjusted her veil. Yet through that lowered veil she stood looking down at Never-Fail ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... indebted to theory than experience. A mere whipt-syllabub knowledge this, Jack, that always fails the person who trusts to it, when it should hold to do her service. For such young ladies have so much dependence upon their own understanding and wariness, are so much above the cautions that the less opinionative may be benefited by, that their presumption is generally their overthrow, when attempted by a man of experience, who knows how to flatter their vanity, and to magnify their ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... extremely anxious to pay off old scores, and the impassive old Doramin cherished the hope of yet seeing his son ruler of Patusan. During one of our interviews he deliberately allowed me to get a glimpse of this secret ambition. Nothing could be finer in its way than the dignified wariness of his approaches. He himself—he began by declaring—had used his strength in his young days, but now he had grown old and tired. . . . With his imposing bulk and haughty little eyes darting sagacious, inquisitive glances, he reminded one irresistibly of a cunning old elephant; the slow ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... the far end of the car. A still, small noise as of something alive that moved with the utmost wariness. A heavy, breathing body crept stealthily across the intervening space; so quietly that a mouse could have ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... contamination in the lowest scenes of French corruption, which had succeeded an equally demoralising initiation into the less graceful vices of the Court of George the First. The inestimable privilege came too late in one sense. Lord Lovat had gained nothing but wariness by the lapse of years; but the benefit to his worldly ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... and the use of arms, physical endurance tested by centuries of exertion and hardship, make every nomad a soldier. Cavalry and camel corps add to the swiftness and vigor of their onslaught, make their military strategy that of sudden attack and swifter retreat, to be met only by wariness and extreme mobility. The ancient Scythians of the lower Danubian steppes were all horse archers, like the Parthians. "If the Scythians were united, there is no nation which could compare with them or would be capable of resisting ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... Next to a wariness respecting your interests is a keen regard for your honour. Have concealed in the privacy of your mind a code of what is due to you. Expand or modify it as occasion offers. Be as it were a collector of what are called "slights," and never let one pass you. Watch your ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... newcomer. They shook hands, Jimmy with something of the wariness of a boxer in the ring. He felt an instinctive distrust of this man. Why, he could not have said. Perhaps it was a certain subtle familiarity in his manner of speaking to Molly that annoyed him. Jimmy objected strongly to any one addressing her as if ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse

... Gillespic to see "Mackenzie's impudent madness, daring thus to face him at such disadvantage." Gillespic, being a more experienced leader than the youthful and impetuous Alexander, said that "such extraordinary boldness should be met by more extraordinary wariness in us, lest we fall into unexpected inconvenience." Macdonald, in a towering passion, replied to this wise counsel - "Go you also and join with them, and it will not need our care nor move the least fear in my ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... pledged myself, and shall keep to it; there is nothing else to do. In the face of Aniela's firmness of purpose there is no room for any agreeing or disagreeing. The fear that she may take back what she has given is enough curb for me. I rather exaggerate my caution and wariness, so as not to frighten away the bird which I call "spiritual love," and she calls "friendship." That word, which in the first moment was merely a prick, enough to make me wince, is gradually growing into a sore. At the time it seemed to me not expressive enough, and now it ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... take no advantage which is not according to the rules of war most strictly interpreted against ourselves, but within such an interpretation showing no quarter. This is the bold course and the true course: it will beget a confidence which can never be felt in the wariness, however well-intentioned, ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... never am, and others tell me the same of themselves, confidentially,) for somebody to appear, or start up out of the earth, or from behind some tree or rock? Is it a lingering, inherited remains of man's primitive wariness, from the wild animals? or from his savage ancestry far back? It is not at all nervousness or fear. Seems as if something unknown were possibly lurking in those bushes, or solitary places. Nay, it is quite certain there is—some vital ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... near her own, however, and the Pathfinder, by floating at her side, was most in view, the conversation was principally maintained with that person; Jasper seldom speaking unless addressed, and constantly exhibiting a wariness in the management of his own boat, which might have been remarked by one accustomed to ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... standing at the head of the stairs, came a sound that stiffened him to a tense wariness. A key was being turned in the lock of the street door below. He moved back into the deeper shadows as ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... and wariness by which the Scottish character is supposed to be distinguished has given rise to ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... universal prudence with respect to all the acts of the virtues; which can be taken as the proper type and likeness of that prudence which in the lion leads to acts of magnanimity, and in the fox to acts of wariness; and so on of the rest. The Divine essence, on account of Its eminence, is in like fashion taken as the proper type of each thing contained therein: hence each one is likened to It according to its proper type. The same applies to the universal form which is in the mind of the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... hither and thither over the country, while at night he lay off in the canebrakes or thickets, without a fire, so as not to attract the Indians. Of the latter he saw many signs, and they sometimes came to his camp, but his sleepless wariness enabled him to avoid capture. Late in July his brother returned, and met him according to appointment at the old camp. Other hunters also now came into the Kentucky wilderness, and Boon joined a small party of them for a short time. Such a party of hunters ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... reach of him, but she did not make her presence known. With the infinite wariness of her race she waited to see what he would do; to read, if she might, what were his thoughts—his attitude toward her in his unguarded moments. That little, inscrutable smile which so exasperated Applehead was on her lips while ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... particularly care what this woman thought in ways as subtle as this? Obvious kindness was her intention, not mental charity pursued into tortuous by-paths. And, besides, her frank, boyish cynicism, its wariness, revolted, even while she felt herself flattered at the prospect of the confidences that seemed to tremble on Mrs. Denby's lips. It wouldn't do to "let herself in for anything"; to "give herself away." No! She adopted a manner of cool, entirely reflective ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... outcome of this philosophy, appears a question to be answered with wariness of empiricism. None can deny that Coignard says when he lies dying: "My son, reject, along with the example I gave you, the maxims which I may have proposed to you during my period of lifelong ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... little dog that had passed there! There was something furtive in the track; it shied off away from the house and around it, as if eying it suspiciously; and then it had the caution and deliberation of the fox,—bold, bold, but not too bold; wariness was in every footprint. If it had been a little dog that had chanced to wander that way, when he crossed my path he would have followed it up to the barn and have gone smelling around for a bone; but this sharp, cautious track held straight across all others, keeping ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... of the buffalo seems the more remarkable from the contrast it offers to their wildness and wariness at other times. Henry knew all their peculiarities; he had studied them as a scholar studies his books, and he derived quite as much pleasure from the occupation. The buffalo were a kind of companions to him, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... not a joint-stock company answer the purpose better, and carry more weight?" she asked, listening with a sort of intent wariness. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... the life of Tadeusz Kosciuszko had now arrived. His fiery and enthusiastic soul leapt to its call; but with none of the headlong precipitance that would have been its ruin. Kosciuszko was too great a patriot to disdain wariness and cool calculation. He never stirred without seeing each step clearly mapped out before him. He took his counsels with Potocki and his other Polish intimates in Saxony; then formulated his plan of the Rising. Each district ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... fought by the "United States" with singular wariness, not to say caution. Her change to the starboard tack, when still some three miles distant, seems to indicate a desire to get the weather gage, as the "Macedonian" was then steering free. It was so interpreted on board the British ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... emancipation, normal women have few serious transactions in life save with their husbands and potential husbands; the business of marriage is their dominant concern from adolescence to senility. When they step outside their habitual circle they show the same alert and eager wariness that they exhibit within it. A man who has dealings with them must keep his wits about him, and even when he is most cautious he is often flabbergasted by their sudden and unconscionable forays. Whenever woman goes into trade she quickly gets a reputation as a sharp trader. Every ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... King sat in a coffee shop and regarded each other with a certain wariness. "It's like this, at least from where I sit," King said. "About ten years ago a small-town judge named ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... temperament that makes itself quickly popular, the laughing, hearty sort, full of badinage, and genuinely liking most men with whom he came in contact. There was always much joking in the air, but back of it was a certain reserve, a certain wariness, for every second man was a professed "fire-eater," given to feeling insulted on the slightest grounds, and flying to the duel or the street ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... indignity of them lashed her soul even more cruelly than the unsparing thong her body. Because of them she went in daily trepidation, submissive almost to the point of abjectness, lest this hateful and demoralizing form of punishment should be inflicted upon her. For some time now, by great wariness and circumspection she had evaded it, and she had begun to entertain the trembling hope that she was at last considered to have passed the age for such childish correction. But her mother's outbreak of violence on the day of their departure had been a painful disillusion, and she knew well what ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... Now, though Charles had by this time been made aware of Sir Richard's long course of treachery, and had privately informed Mordaunt of the extraordinary discovery, the fact had been too little divulged to destroy the effects of Sir Richard's counsels of wariness and delay, agreeable as these naturally were to men fearing for their lives and estates and remembering the failure of all previous insurrections. In short, whatever was the cause, August 1, which had been the day fixed for a simultaneous rising in many places, passed with far less demonstration ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... experience, to find that this girl, though she had been married to him, could yet be so coy. Notwithstanding a certain fascination that it carried with it, his reflections were sombre as he went homeward; he saw how deep had been his offence to produce so great a wariness in a gentle ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... silliness! Could you not be happy with me here in this palace? You would be a princess, indeed, a queen of my heart. I would put every luxury at your command." In mingled eagerness and wariness he watched her, incredulous of her assenting mood, but with a hope that lured him on to believe. And in his eyes, dubious, desirous, calculating, watchful, she read the fluctuations of his thought. If afterwards there should happen to be any trouble about this ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... without eloquence, who yet had the wisdom to devise, and the courage to perform, that which they lacked language to explain. Such men often, in troubled times, have worked out the deliverance of nations and their own greatness, not by logic, not by rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by calmness in danger, by fierce and stubborn resolution in all adversity. The hearts of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their eloquence: and such an one, in my judgment, was his late Highness, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay



Words linked to "Wariness" :   caution, unwariness, circumspection, wary



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