ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Precarious

Definition, Meaning & Examples

Pronunciation /pɹɪˈkɛəɹi.əs/ · Part of speech adjective

Quick meaning: Precarious is an adjective meaning (comparable) Dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous.

Meaning

(comparable) Dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous.

More Meanings

  1. (law) Depending on the intention of another.
  2. (dentistry) Relating to incipient caries.

Example Sentences

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

Synonyms for precarious

Depending on context, synonyms include unsteady, rickety, shaky, tottering, unsafe, wobbly.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include parlous, dangerous, perilous, uneasy, unsafe, shaky.

Related Dictionary Tools

Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.