Precarious means balanced so unsafely it could fall at any moment. A precarious pile, precarious position, precariously balanced.
It covers physical balance and situations equally — precarious employment is work that could end without notice, and the phrase is standard in labour economics. The origin is striking: the Latin means held only by somebody else's goodwill, from prex, a prayer, so a precarious thing is one you hold by request.
1adjectiveprecariousBalanced so unsafely it could fall at any moment.
“A pile of plates stood in a precarious tower on the edge of the table.”
synonyms: unstable, insecure
precarious is a quality of instability.
Also accepted in games: unstable
Latin precarius means obtained by entreaty, from prex, a prayer. Pray and deprecate come from the same asking.
Proto-Indo-European
*preḱ-
Latin
precārius — begged for, obtained by entreaty
English, today
precarious
Built from
From Latin precārius (“begged for, obtained by entreaty”), from prex, precis (“prayer”). Compare French précaire, Portuguese precário, and Spanish and Italian precario.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA