cautioning

Pluralcautionings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of giving a warning or telling someone to be careful.

   The committee issued a formal cautioning before suspending the player.

   Years of gentle cautioning from his doctor finally changed his diet.

   Similarwarning, admonition

   Note

   Unlike the verb form, this noun can be counted. Cautionings are individual warnings, and the plural tends to suggest a series of them. Augustus Mayhew's Paved with Gold (1872) has a man who treats "her cautionings with apparent indifference" while the daylight lasts and grows nervous only when night falls. The plural keeps attention on the repeated act, warning after warning, rather than on any single message.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of caution.

   The inspector is cautioning the crew against entering the damaged building.

   Health officials are cautioning travelers about the outbreak abroad.

   Note

   One spelling, two grammatical jobs. With be it forms the progressive (officials are cautioning residents). Without be it is a gerund that fills a noun slot (after cautioning the crew, she left). Because caution is transitive, both uses normally take the person warned as their object. The form also carries the sporting sense of showing a player a yellow card. It sits right beside the noun for a warning, which alone takes a plural.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2