the.com/caution
The art of hesitating just long enough to not die.
means Careful attention to possible danger or trouble, taken before acting rather than after.
from From Latin cautio, 'wariness, a taking heed,' rooted in the verb cavere, 'to be on guard, beware' — the same root that gives us 'caveat,' the warning you post before someone gets hurt. It passed into French caution and then into English, carrying its guard-duty sense the whole way: caution has always been less about fear itself than about posting a lookout against it.
- legal root
- cautio also meant a security deposit in Roman law
- shared ancestor
- caveat and caution come from the same Latin verb
- tape color
- yellow caution tape chosen for maximum visual alarm
- paradox
- too much caution is itself a risk, called paralysis