What's the difference between captious and cautious?

Captious


Definition:

  • (a.) Apt to catch at faults; disposed to find fault or to cavil; eager to object; difficult to please.
  • (a.) Fitted to harass, perplex, or insnare; insidious; troublesome.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Present day abandonment includes the deployment of professionals from patients to paper; the destruction of availability and effectiveness of institutional facilities; the obfuscation of mental illness by captious, sematic criticism; the aspirations of paramedical and paraprofessional groups; and the subordination of the primary purpose of institutions and physicians to other objectives.
  • (2) It's got to combine love and friendship, but also, you can't be captious.
  • (3) But this was the captious side of him, furious that Marr was not playing by the rules, or, more accurately, respecting his usual exemption from aggressive cross-examination.

Cautious


Definition:

  • (a.) Attentive to examine probable effects and consequences of acts with a view to avoid danger or misfortune; prudent; circumspect; wary; watchful; as, a cautious general.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In a climate in which medical staffs are being sued as a result of their decisions in peer review activities, hospitals' administrative and medical staffs are becoming more cautious in their approach to medical staff privileging.
  • (2) Since the start of this week, markets have been more cautious, with bond yields in Spain reaching their highest levels in four months on Tuesday amid concern about the scale of the austerity measures being imposed by the government and fears that the country might need a bailout.
  • (3) He looks set to become a stronger leader than his cautious predecessor, Hu Jintao, but he is no radical reformer, experts say.
  • (4) Cautious fluid administration and observation for cardiopulmonary deterioration are crucial in management of the critically ill, high-risk group of HELLP syndrome patients with large-volume ascites.
  • (5) Ready to be fleeced and swamped, I wandered cautiously along Laugavegur past the lovely independent shops, the clean, friendly streets and ended up in a fun hipsterish bar called the Lebowski, where they serve Tuborg and the craft burgers are named things like The Walter (I ordered The Nihilist).
  • (6) Banks have become particularly cautious of money transfer services such as Western Union , which are perceived as particularly open to abuse.
  • (7) Merkel is above all a cautious politician who recognises the limits of her power.
  • (8) But providers are cautious about participating in the Essential Access Community Hospital (EACH) program until final rules are published.
  • (9) The chancellor deliberately made cautious assumptions for the deficit in the budget, but the 5.6% contraction in the economy has blown an even bigger hole in the public finances than feared in April.
  • (10) Elderly listeners exhibited less cautious response criteria than did younger listeners.
  • (11) Cautious welcome for changes DAC’s decisions have had a mixed reception.
  • (12) Green groups were hostile or reacted cautiously to the report.
  • (13) Darling, one of the Cabinet's Eeyores, took a more cautious view but even he has been surprised by the length, depth and breadth of the crisis.
  • (14) The test must therefore be applied cautiously to seronegative animals.
  • (15) Only selected samples were analyzed in 1973; therefore, these figures should be used only cautiously as trend data.
  • (16) Yet the mood on Friday night among the hundreds of (very young) party workers and activists was cautious.
  • (17) Cautious conclusion should advise to use Collins solution when there has not been a long warm ischemia.
  • (18) Interpretation must be cautious, because these analyses are based on relatively few cases and on single 24-h urine samples.
  • (19) The cautious study began with small extramarginal skin excisions and progressed gradually via moderate sized juxtamarginal excisions of skin and orbicularis lamella to full-thickness margin-inclusive excisions.
  • (20) But had it been couched in "more cautious terms or less certain terms may not have been capable of criticism at all".