carefully

From Middle English carfulli, carefulliche, from Old English carfullīċe, ċearfullīċe (“carefully, diligently”), equivalent to careful +‎ -ly.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛːf(ə)li/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: care‧ful‧ly, caref‧ully

carefully (comparative more carefully, superlative most carefully)

1. (obsolete) Sorrowfully.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     […] there was she faine / To call them all in order to her ayde, / And them conjure, upon eternall paine, / To counsell her, so carefully dismayd, / How she might heale her sonne […]

2. With care; attentively, circumspectly.

   As he was a politician, he discussed all subjects carefully, not offending anyone.

   He carefully studied the papers, while planning his next move.

   He carefully avoided the subject all evening.

   • 1913, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., , , →OCLC, page 0091:

     Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean. ¶ There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

3. Conscientiously, painstakingly, fastidiously, meticulously

• tread carefully