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precarious. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
precarious, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
precarious in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
precarious you have here. The definition of the word
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precarious, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Latin precārius (“begged for, obtained by entreaty”), from prex, precis (“prayer”). Compare French précaire, Portuguese precário, and Spanish and Italian precario.
Adjective
precarious (comparative more precarious, superlative most precarious)
- (comparable) Dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous.
- Synonyms: unsteady, rickety, shaky, tottering, unsafe, unstable, wobbly
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.
2016, Doris L. Bergen, “8 - Flashover: The Killing Centers, 1942-1944”, in War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust, page 266:The existence of Jewish partisans was precarious. They lived from hand to mouth, stealing when necessary, arranging secret deliveries of food, and spending hours and even days in holes in the ground when danger threatened.
2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 57:One can't escape the huge nuclear facility at Sellafield (supplier of much of the line's remaining freight traffic), or miss the wild shingle beaches with exposed and precarious bungalows sandwiched between the railway and the shore at Braystones.
- (law) Depending on the intention of another.
Usage notes
Because the pre- element of precarious derives from prex and not the preposition prae, this term cannot — etymologically speaking — be written as *præcarious.
Derived terms
Translations
dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous
- Bulgarian: несигурен (bg) (nesiguren), ненадежден (bg) (nenadežden)
- Catalan: precari (ca)
- Chinese:
- Cantonese: 不穩嘅 / 不稳嘅 (bat wan2 ge3), 危險嘅 / 危险嘅 (ngai4 him2 ge3), 朝不保夕嘅 (ziu1 bat1 bou2 zik6 ge3)
- Czech: nejistý, prekérní (cs), ošidný
- Danish: prekær, penibel
- Dutch: hachelijk (nl), onzeker (nl), precair (nl), onbestendig (nl)
- Finnish: vaarallinen (fi)
- French: précaire (fr)
- Galician: please add this translation if you can
- German: heikel (de), schwierig (de), unsicher (de), prekär (de), schlimm (de), bedrohlich (de), gefährdet (de), bedenklich (de)
- Greek: επισφαλής (el) (episfalís)
- Hungarian: bizonytalan (hu), ingatag (hu), kétes (hu)
- Icelandic: please add this translation if you can
- Italian: please add this translation if you can
- Korean: 다루기 어려운 (darugi eoryeoun)
- Latin: precarius
- Mongolian: please add this translation if you can
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: prekær (no)
- Nynorsk: prekær
- Occitan: precari (oc)
- Plautdietsch: roakboa
- Polish: niebezpieczny (pl), niepewny (pl)
- Portuguese: precário (pt)
- Russian: опа́сный (ru) (opásnyj), риско́ванный (ru) (riskóvannyj), ненадёжный (ru) (nenadjóžnyj), ша́ткий (ru) (šátkij)
- Serbo-Croatian: please add this translation if you can
- Spanish: precario (es)
- Swedish: prekär (sv)
- Welsh: ansicr (cy), simsan (cy), sigledig (cy)
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(law) depending on the intention of another
Translations to be checked
Further reading
- “precarious”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “precarious”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
Precarious in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
Etymology 2
From pre- + carious.
Adjective
precarious (not comparable)
- (dentistry) Relating to incipient caries.