precarious

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɹəˈkɛəɹi.əs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɹəˈkɛɹi.əs/
• Rhymes: -ɛəɹiəs
• Hyphenation: pre‧ca‧ri‧ous

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)

1. (comparable) Dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698:

     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.

   • 1906, Jack London, chapter 3, in White Fang, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, part 1:

     Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of it was so precarious.

2. (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.

Synonyms

• (not held or fixed securely and likely to fall over): unsteady, rickety, shaky, tottering, unsafe, unstable, wobbly

Derived terms

Derived terms

• precariat
• precariously
• precariousness

• precarisation, precarization
• precarity

Related terms

• pray

Translations

dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous

• Bulgarian: несигурен (bg) (nesiguren), ненадежден (bg) (nenadežden)
• Catalan: precari (ca)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 不穩嘅 (bat wan² ge³), 危險嘅 (ngai⁴ him² ge³), 朝不保夕嘅 (ziu¹ bat¹ bou² zik⁶ ge³)

• Czech: nejistý, prekérní (cs), ošidný
• Finnish: vaarallinen (fi)
• French: précaire (fr)
• German: prekär (de), unsicher (de), gefährdet (de)
• Korean: 다루기 어려운 (darugi eoryeoun)
• Latin: precarius

• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: prekær

  Nynorsk: prekær

• Plautdietsch: roakboa
• Portuguese: precário (pt)
• Russian: опа́сный (ru) (opásnyj), риско́ванный (ru) (riskóvannyj), ненадёжный (ru) (nenadjóžnyj), ша́ткий (ru) (šátkij)
• Spanish: precario (es)
• Swedish: prekär (sv)

(law) depending on the intention of another

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Dutch: precair (nl)
• German: prekär (de)
• Portuguese: precário (pt)

• Serbo-Croatian: krhak (sh), nesiguran (sh)
• Swedish: prekär (sv)
• Yiddish: אומזיכער‎ (umzikher)

Further reading

• precarious in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• precarious in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Precarious in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Etymology 2

pre- + carious

Adjective

precarious (not comparable)

1. (dentistry) Relating to incipient caries.