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Precarious vs Precipitous - What's the difference?

precarious | precipitous |

As adjectives the difference between precarious and precipitous

is that precarious is (comparable) dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous or precarious can be (dentistry) relating to incipient caries while precipitous is steep, like a precipice; as, a precipitous cliff or mountain.

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.

    • precipitous

    English

    (wikipedia precipitous)

    Adjective

    (head)
  • Steep, like a precipice; as, a precipitous cliff or mountain.
  • Headlong; as, precipitous fall.
  • Hasty; rash; quick; sudden; precipitate; as, precipitous attempts.
  • * 2007, J. Michael Fay, Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma , National Geographic (March 2007), 46,
    • ...humans have been responsible for a precipitous decline of elephants, from perhaps 300,000 in the early 1970s to some 10,000 today.
    (Webster 1913)

    Synonyms

    * (steep) brant