marked by keen caution and watchful prudence; "they were wary in their movements"; "a wary glance at the black clouds"; "taught to be wary of strangers"
unpredictably difficult in operation; likely to be troublesome; "rockets were much too fractious to be tested near thickly populated areas"; "fractious components of a communication system"
stubbornly resistant to authority or control; "a fractious animal that would not submit to the harness"; "a refractory child"
operating with minimal human intervention; independent of external control; "automatic transmission"; "a budget deficit that caused automatic spending cuts"
like the unthinking functioning of a machine; "an automatic `thank you'"; "machinelike efficiency"
without volition or conscious control; "the automatic shrinking of the pupils of the eye in strong light"; "a reflex knee jerk"; "sneezing is reflexive"