• (RP) IPA: /ˈtʃɛəɹi/
• (GA, non-Mary-marry-merry) IPA: /ˈtʃɛəɹi/
• (GA, Mary-marry-merry) IPA: /ˈtʃɛɹi/
• (GA, Mary-marry-merry) homophones en

chary (comparative charier, superlative chariest)

1. Careful, cautious, shy#Adjective|shy, wary.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:cautious

   Antonyms: unchary, Thesaurus:careless

   • c. 1599–1602, William Shake-speare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (First Quarto), London: Printed [by Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and Iohn Trundell, published 1603, OCLC 84758312 ↗, [Act I, scene ii] ↗, lines 35–36:

     The Charieſt maide is prodigall enough, / If ſhe vnmaske hir beautie to the Moone.

   • 1675, [William] Wycherley, The Country-wife, a Comedy, […], London: Printed for Thomas Dring, […], OCLC 912643989 ↗; republished London: Printed for T[homas] Dring, and sold by R. Bentley, and S. Magnes […], 1688, OCLC 7479409 ↗, Act I, scene i, page 4 ↗:

     [Y]our Women of Honour, as you call 'em, are only chary of their reputations, not their Perſons, and 'tis ſcandal they wou'd avoid, not Men: [...]

   • 1860 December – 1861 August​, Charles Dickens, chapter XIV, in Great Expectations [...] In Three Volumes, volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, OCLC 3359935 ↗, page 233 ↗:

     I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely with her; but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe the dinner in Gerrard-street, if we had not then come into a sudden glare of gas.

2. Excessively particular or fussy about detail#Noun|details; fastidious.

   Antonyms: unchary

3. Not disposed#Adjective|disposed to give#Verb|give freely; not lavish#Adjective|lavish; frugal, sparing#Adjective|sparing.

   Antonyms: unchary

4. (obsolete) care#Verb|Cared for, regard#Verb|regarded as precious; cherished#Adjective|cherished.

   Antonyms: unchary

   • 1820 March, [Walter Scott], chapter IV, in The Monastery. A Romance. [...] In Three Volumes, volume III, Edinburgh: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Co., and John Ballantyne, […], OCLC 892089409 ↗, pages 112–113 ↗:

     The bounty so much delighted mine host, that he ran to fill the stirrup-cup (for which no charge was ever made) from a butt yet charier than that which he had pierced for the former stoup.

chary

1. Synonym of charily#English|charily: carefully, cautiously, warily.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:cautiously

   Antonyms: carelessly, incautiously, uncarefully, uncautiously, unwarily

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 22”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer before Imprinted‎, London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, OCLC 216596634 ↗, lines 11–12:

     O therefore loue be of thy ſelfe ſo wary, / As I not for my ſelfe, but for thee will, / Bearing thy heart, which I will keep ſo chary / As tender nurſe her babe from faring ill, [...]