"watch one's step" meaning in English

See watch one's step in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-watch one's step.ogg Forms: watches one's step [present, singular, third-person], watching one's step [participle, present], watched one's step [participle, past], watched one's step [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} watch one's step (third-person singular simple present watches one's step, present participle watching one's step, simple past and past participle watched one's step)
  1. To move cautiously. Translations (to move cautiously): 走路小心 (zǒulù) (Chinese Mandarin), katsoa eteensä (Finnish), regarder devant soi (French), faire attention où l’on marche (French), προσέχω πού πατάω (prosécho poú patáo) (Greek), a lába elé néz (Hungarian)
    Sense id: en-watch_one's_step-en-verb-ZF29yGTv Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English predicates, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with French translations, Terms with Greek translations, Terms with Hungarian translations, Terms with Mandarin translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 51 49 Disambiguation of English predicates: 50 50 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 51 49 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Greek translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Hungarian translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Mandarin translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of 'to move cautiously': 100 0
  2. (idiomatic) To be cautious. Tags: idiomatic Translations (to be cautious): 谨慎行事 (jǐnshèn) (Chinese Mandarin), katsoa eteensä (Finnish), faire attention (French), être prudent (French)
    Sense id: en-watch_one's_step-en-verb-fbxWY-~U Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English predicates, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with French translations, Terms with Greek translations, Terms with Hungarian translations, Terms with Mandarin translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 51 49 Disambiguation of English predicates: 50 50 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 50 50 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 51 49 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with French translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Greek translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Hungarian translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of Terms with Mandarin translations: 50 50 Disambiguation of 'to be cautious': 0 100

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "watches one's step",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "watching one's step",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "watched one's step",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "watched one's step",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "watch one's step (third-person singular simple present watches one's step, present participle watching one's step, simple past and past participle watched one's step)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
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          "_dis": "51 49",
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        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To move cautiously."
      ],
      "id": "en-watch_one's_step-en-verb-ZF29yGTv",
      "links": [
        [
          "move",
          "move"
        ],
        [
          "cautiously",
          "cautious"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "zǒulù",
          "sense": "to move cautiously",
          "word": "走路小心"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to move cautiously",
          "word": "katsoa eteensä"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to move cautiously",
          "word": "regarder devant soi"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to move cautiously",
          "word": "faire attention où l’on marche"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "roman": "prosécho poú patáo",
          "sense": "to move cautiously",
          "word": "προσέχω πού πατάω"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "to move cautiously",
          "word": "a lába elé néz"
        }
      ]
    },
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              84,
              98
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1944 May and June, “In the Critics' Den”, in Railway Magazine, page 132:",
          "text": "We congratulate our correspondents on some very cogent reasoning, and shall have to watch our step even more carefully in future!",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be cautious."
      ],
      "id": "en-watch_one's_step-en-verb-fbxWY-~U",
      "links": [
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          "cautious",
          "cautious"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be cautious."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "jǐnshèn",
          "sense": "to be cautious",
          "word": "谨慎行事"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to be cautious",
          "word": "katsoa eteensä"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to be cautious",
          "word": "faire attention"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to be cautious",
          "word": "être prudent"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-watch one's step.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/ce/En-au-watch_one%27s_step.ogg/En-au-watch_one%27s_step.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/En-au-watch_one%27s_step.ogg"
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  "word": "watch one's step"
}
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    "English lemmas",
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    "English verbs",
    "Entries with translation boxes",
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    "Pages with entries",
    "Terms with Finnish translations",
    "Terms with French translations",
    "Terms with Greek translations",
    "Terms with Hungarian translations",
    "Terms with Mandarin translations"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "watches one's step",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "watching one's step",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "watched one's step",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "watched one's step",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
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      },
      "expansion": "watch one's step (third-person singular simple present watches one's step, present participle watching one's step, simple past and past participle watched one's step)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "To move cautiously."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "move",
          "move"
        ],
        [
          "cautiously",
          "cautious"
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          "ref": "1944 May and June, “In the Critics' Den”, in Railway Magazine, page 132:",
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        "To be cautious."
      ],
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        "(idiomatic) To be cautious."
      ],
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        "idiomatic"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "zǒulù",
      "sense": "to move cautiously",
      "word": "走路小心"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to move cautiously",
      "word": "katsoa eteensä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to move cautiously",
      "word": "regarder devant soi"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to move cautiously",
      "word": "faire attention où l’on marche"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "prosécho poú patáo",
      "sense": "to move cautiously",
      "word": "προσέχω πού πατάω"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "to move cautiously",
      "word": "a lába elé néz"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "jǐnshèn",
      "sense": "to be cautious",
      "word": "谨慎行事"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to be cautious",
      "word": "katsoa eteensä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to be cautious",
      "word": "faire attention"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to be cautious",
      "word": "être prudent"
    }
  ],
  "word": "watch one's step"
}

Download raw JSONL data for watch one's step meaning in English (2.9kB)

{
  "called_from": "form_descriptions/2013",
  "msg": "more than one value in \"roman\": xiǎoxīn vs. zǒulù",
  "path": [
    "watch one's step"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "verb",
  "title": "watch one's step",
  "trace": ""
}

{
  "called_from": "form_descriptions/2013",
  "msg": "more than one value in \"roman\": xíngshì vs. jǐnshèn",
  "path": [
    "watch one's step"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "verb",
  "title": "watch one's step",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-29 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-20 using wiktextract (4eaa824 and ea19a0a). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.