Precipitous means very steep, or dangerously hasty. A precipitous drop, a precipitous decline, precipitous action.
Careful writers keep it for steepness and use precipitate for haste, though the two have largely merged. A precipitous drop in figures is now the commonest use and means a fall as steep as a cliff.
1adjectiveprecipitousVery steep, or dangerously hasty.
“A precipitous mountain road with no barriers wound up to the monastery.”
precipitous is a quality.
Latin praeceps means headlong, from prae plus caput, a head; precipice shares the root.
Proto-Indo-European
*kap-
Vulgar Latin
*praecipitōsus
French
précipiteux
English, today
precipitous
From obsolete French précipiteux, from Vulgar Latin praecipitōsus, from praeceps, praecipit- + -ōsus, from prae- + caput. Equivalent to precipice + -ous.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA