UNWARY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does unwary mean? 

• UNWARY (adjective)
  The adjective UNWARY has 1 sense:

1. not alert to danger or deception

  Familiarity information: UNWARY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNWARY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not alert to danger or deception

Context example:

seduce the unwary reader into easy acquiescence

Similar:

gullible (easily tricked because of being too trusting)

unguarded (displaying or feeling no wariness)

Attribute:

chariness; wariness (the trait of being cautious and watchful)

Antonym:

wary (marked by keen caution and watchful prudence)

Derivation:

unwariness (the trait of not being cautious and watchful)

 Context examples 

"Thank you, I prefer spiders," she replied, fishing up two unwary little ones who had gone to a creamy death.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Well, so I should, only I know there are a lot of traps for the unwary, and that stones may be of any size and yet of little value where color and consistency are clean off.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I could heartily wish a law was enacted, that every traveller, before he were permitted to publish his voyages, should be obliged to make oath before the Lord High Chancellor, that all he intended to print was absolutely true to the best of his knowledge; for then the world would no longer be deceived, as it usually is, while some writers, to make their works pass the better upon the public, impose the grossest falsities on the unwary reader.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)