Skip to main content
PlainSpell

leery

UK /ˈlɪəɹi/adjective

leery is an adjective meaning “Cautious, suspicious, wary, hesitant, or nervous about something; having reservations or concerns” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled L-E-E-R-Y and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does leery mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Cautious, suspicious, wary, hesitant, or nervous about something; having reservations or concerns.

    Since he was bitten by a dog when he was young, he has always been leery of animals.

  2. 2

    UKobsoleteslangSly; artful; knowing.

  3. 3

    Leering; lecherous or unpleasant.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce leery?

  • UK /ˈlɪəɹi/
  • British /ˈlɪːɹɪj/
  • /ˈlɪɹi/

Leery has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-leery.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-VCcortex-leery.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of leery

  • leerier comparative
  • leeriest superlative
  • leary

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is leery?

Leery appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 48,230th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Words people confuse with leery

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

leary vs leery90 G

Also written: leary.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Leery in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense cautious, hesitant, or nervous:

LanguageWords
Germanargwöhnisch
Spanishreceloso, desconfiado, cauteloso

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does leery come from?

First attested in 1718, “untrustful, suspicious”, either from leer (“sideward look”) + -y, lear (“learning, knowledge”) + -y. More at leer, lear.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).