What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Precarious vs Gruesome - What's the difference?

precarious | gruesome |

As adjectives the difference between precarious and gruesome

is that precarious is (comparable) dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous or precarious can be (dentistry) relating to incipient caries while gruesome is repellently frightful and shocking; horrific or ghastly.

precarious

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) , and Spanish and Italian precario.

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • (comparable) Dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous.
  • *
    • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=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.}}
  • (legal) Depending on the intention of another.

    • Synonyms

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

    Usage notes

    * Because the (term) element of (term) derives from prex and not the preposition prae, this term cannot — etymologically speaking — be written as *.

    Quotations

    * 1906 , (Jack London), , part I, ch III, *: Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of it was so precarious .

    Derived terms

    * precariously * precariousness * precariat * precarisation, precarization * precarity

    External links

    * *

    Etymology 2

    pre-'' + ''carious

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (dentistry) Relating to incipient caries.

    • gruesome

    English

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • repellently frightful and shocking; horrific or ghastly
  • * 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 6
    • In the middle of the floor lay a skeleton, every vestige of flesh gone from the bones to which still clung the mildewed and moldered remnants of what had once been clothing. Upon the bed lay a similar gruesome thing, but smaller, while in a tiny cradle near-by was a third, a wee mite of a skeleton.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=May 04 , title=Bin Laden was unarmed when shot dead citation , passage=Jay Carney said that the US was considering whether to release photos of bin Laden after he was killed on Sunday but that the photos were gruesome and could be inflammatory.}}