D defs.my
Menu ☰
Entry 5 senses · 2 variants Webster, 1913

Care

/(kâr)/ · IPA /kɛɚ/
01 n. A burdensome sense of responsibility; trouble caused by onerous duties; anxiety; concern; solicitude.
  1. 1.
    A burdensome sense of responsibility; trouble caused by onerous duties; anxiety; concern; solicitude.
    “Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.” — Shak.
  2. 2.
    Charge, oversight, or management, implying responsibility for safety and prosperity.
    “The care of all the churches.” — 2 Cor. xi. 28.
    “Him thy care must be to find.” — Milton.
    “Perplexed with a thousand cares.” — Shak.
  3. 3.
    Attention or heed; caution; regard; heedfulness; watchfulness; as, take care; have a care.
    “I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.” — Shak.
  4. 4.
    The object of watchful attention or anxiety.
    “Right sorrowfully mourning her bereaved cares.” — Spenser.
Syn. Anxiety; solicitude; concern; caution; regard; management; direction; oversight. -- Care, Anxiety, Solicitude, Concern. These words express mental pain in different degress. Care belongs primarily to the intellect, and becomes painful from overburdened thought. Anxiety denotes a state of distressing uneasiness fron the dread of evil. Solicitude expresses the same feeling in a diminished degree. Concern is opposed to indifference, and implies exercise of anxious thought more or less intense. We are careful about the means, solicitous and anxious about the end; we are solicitous to obtain a good, anxious to avoid an evil.
02 v. i. To be anxious or solicitous; to be concerned; to have regard or interest; -- sometimes followed by an objective of measure.
imp. & p. p. Cared; p. pr. & vb. n. Caring
  1. 1.
    To be anxious or solicitous; to be concerned; to have regard or interest; -- sometimes followed by an objective of measure.
    “I would not care a pin, if the other three were in.” — Shak.
    “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” — Mark. iv. 38.
    “He cared not for the affection of the house.” — Tennyson.
Phrases & compounds
To care for — To have under watchful attention; to take care of.