cautionary tale

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English

Noun

cautionary tale (plural cautionary tales)

  1. A story, originally told in folklore, to warn its audience of a certain danger.
    • 2018 November 13, Kate Julian, “Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex?”, in The Atlantic:
      This tone has slowly given way to a realization that the country’s experience might be less a curiosity than a cautionary tale.
    • 2020 November 17, Ben Chu, “Review: How to Make the World Add Up, by Tim Harford”, in The Independent, retrieved 2021-01-13:
      And Harford’s book, of course, has more than a decade of fresh cautionary tales from our troubled era of social media, big data, algorithmic mayhem, and “alternative facts” on which to draw.

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