Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Care?

\Care\ (k[^a]r), n. [AS. caru, cearu; akin to OS. kara sorrow, Goth. kara, OHG chara, lament, and perh. to Gr. gh^rys voice. Not akin to cure. Cf. {Chary}.] 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. 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. Attention or heed; caution; regard; heedfulness; watchfulness; as, take care; have a care. I thank thee for thy care and honest pains. --Shak. 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.
\Care\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Cared}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Caring}.] [AS. cearian. See {Care}, n.] 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. {To care for}. (a) To have under watchful attention; to take care of. (b) To have regard or affection for; to like or love. He cared not for the affection of the house. --Tennyson.