the.com/caveat
The fine print your optimism forgot to read.
means A caveat is a warning attached to something you say or agree to, flagging a condition, exception, or risk that limits what came before it.
from Straight from Latin caveat, meaning 'let him beware' — a form of the verb cavere, 'to be on guard.' It started life in legal documents as its own little sentence, a formal notice that someone was entering an objection or condition on the record. English just kept the word and let it slide out of the courtroom into everyday speech, still doing the same job: making sure someone, somewhere, was properly warned.
- latin root
- means let him beware, literally a warning label
- legal cousin
- caveat emptor shifts the risk onto you, buyer
- social use
- precedes the sentence that cancels the compliment before it
- size paradox
- usually small word, suspiciously large consequences