Precarious vs Precautionary - What's the difference?
precarious | precautionary |
(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.
(dentistry) Relating to incipient caries.
Of, pertaining to, or serving as a precaution
(obsolete) A precaution.
* 1748 , Samuel Richardson, Clarissa
As adjectives the difference between precarious and precautionary
is that precarious is dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous while precautionary is of, pertaining to, or serving as a precaution.As a noun precautionary is
a precaution.precarious
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) , and Spanish and Italian precario.Adjective
(en adjective)Synonyms
* (not held or fixed securely and likely to fall over) unsteady, rickety, shaky, tottering, unsafe, unstable, wobblyUsage 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 * precarityExternal links
* *Etymology 2
pre-'' + ''cariousAdjective
(-)precautionary
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- The article 3.3 of the states the precautionary principle .
Noun
(precautionaries)- Thou seest, Belford, by the above precautionaries , that I forget nothing.