Precarious vs Vacillate - What's the difference?
precarious | vacillate |
(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.
To sway unsteadily from one side to the other; oscillate.
* 1910:
To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another.
* 2004: , Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage
As an adjective precarious
is (comparable) dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous or precarious can be (dentistry) relating to incipient caries.As a verb vacillate is
to sway unsteadily from one side to the other; oscillate.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
(-)vacillate
English
Verb
(vacillat)- Its [the barometer's] normal register in the Paumotus [the Tuamotus] was 29.90, and it was quite customary to see it vacillate between 29.85 and 30.00, or even 30.05; [...]
- On the streets of Berlin, Ruth and her compatriots vacillated "between hope and despair."