Context reveals meaning. A box is stamped 'Handle with care — ___.' The word warns that the contents break easily. Which fits?

"Fragile" is the word that fits, since it means easily broken or damaged — exactly the warning a shipping label needs to convey when it says "handle with care." The phrase functions as a direct heads-up to whoever is carrying the box that rough handling could destroy its contents.

"Sturdy" means the opposite — strong and resistant to damage — which would contradict the entire purpose of a "handle with care" warning. "Spicy" describes taste or heat in food and has no logical connection to packaging or fragility at all.

Shipping and packaging use a small standardized vocabulary of warning words worldwide — fragile, perishable, flammable — precisely because these labels need to be instantly understood by handlers who may not read the shipping language fluently.