leery
adjective
Simple meaning
Cautious, suspicious, wary, hesitant, or nervous about something.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lihreeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlɪɹi
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Cautious, suspicious, wary, hesitant, or nervous about something; having reservations or concerns.
of a look or smile
Lecherous.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Cautious, suspicious, wary, hesitant, or nervous about something; having reservations or concerns.
Used this way, leery is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It keeps things gentle rather than emphatic.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Reluctant or hesitant
- Usage feel
- Understated and gentle
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: cautious or suspicious or wary or hesitant
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.