Wary or weary?
wary is an adjective meaning “Cautious of danger; carefully watching and guarding against deception…”; weary is an adjective meaning “Having the strength exhausted by toil or exertion; tired; fatigued”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) weary is about as common as wary.
What is the difference between wary and weary?
| wary | weary | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, verb | adjective, verb |
| Meaning | Cautious of danger; carefully watching and guarding against deception, trickery, and dangers; suspiciously prudent Characterized by caution; guarded; careful; on one's guard To curse, revile | Having the strength exhausted by toil or exertion; tired; fatigued Having one's patience, relish, or contentment exhausted; tired; sick To make or to become weary |
| Example | He is wary of dogs | A weary traveller knocked at the door |
| Forms | warier, wariest | wearier, weariest |
| Pronunciation | /ˈwɛə.ɹi/ /ˈwɛɚ.i/ /ˈweːɹi/ | /ˈwɪə̯ɹi/ /ˈwɪːɹɪj/ /ˈwɪɹi/ |
| In writing | 3.7 times per million words | 4.1 times per million words |
Sources: wary and weary in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of wary and weary
wary
- 1
Cautious of danger; carefully watching and guarding against deception, trickery, and dangers; suspiciously prudent
He is wary of dogs
- 2
To curse, revile
- 3
Characterized by caution; guarded; careful; on one's guard
- 4
thrifty, provident
weary
- 1
Having the strength exhausted by toil or exertion; tired; fatigued
A weary traveller knocked at the door
- 2
To make or to become weary
- 3
Having one's patience, relish, or contentment exhausted; tired; sick
soldiers weary of marching, or of confinement; I grew weary of studying and left the library
- 4
Expressive of fatigue
He gave me a weary smile
- 5
Causing weariness; tiresome
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, wary or weary?
wary appears 3.7 times per million words; weary 4.1 times per million words.
wary 3.7 times per million wordsweary 4.1 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search wary vs weary?
“wary vs weary” is searched about 5,400 times a month on Google and 280 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“weary vs wary”, “wary or weary”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.