Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use precarious in a sentence

25 example sentences · adjective

Precarious means dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous. Example: “Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of it was so precarious.”

Examples of precarious by meaning

adjectiveDangerously insecure or unstable; perilous.

  • Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of it was so precarious.1906 May–October, Jack London, chapter III, in White Fang, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published...
  • The existence of Jewish partisans was precarious.2016, Doris L. Bergen, “8 - Flashover: The Killing Centers, 1942-1944”, in War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust, page 266
  • One can't escape the huge nuclear facility at Sellafield (supplier of much of the line's remaining freight traffic), or miss the wild shingle beaches with exposed and precarious bungalows sandwiched between the railway and the shore at Braystones.2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 57

More sentences with precarious

  • Bakke has shaped a precarious context for diversity initiatives in higher education.2003, Adalberto Aguirre, Racial and Ethnic Diversity in America: A Reference Handbook, page 72. From the entry diversity
  • The United States kept laissez-faire too long and it let us drift into a precarious predicament.1941, Blair Moody, Boom or Bust, page 317. From the entry boom or bust
  • “We are at a really precarious time in our history.2018 January 31, “We are close to ducks’ guts, says economist”, in Barbados Today, archived from the original on 01 Feb 2018. From the entry duck's guts
  • Yet every step you take is a precarious act.2013 September-October, Rob Dorit, “These 'Bots Are Made for Walking”, in American Scientist, archived from the original on 30 Nov 2014. From the entry walking
  • The first diagram reveals a multi-polar system, in which a plurality of forces and interests balance each other in precarious equilibrium.2012, Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, Penguin, published 2013, page 121. From the entry multipolar
  • How buyers and sellers negotiated over a lagniappe—an extra tidbit or bonus—reveals the precarious nature of trust in such relationships.2011, Steven Johnstone, “Haggling”, in A History of Trust in Ancient Greece, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN…. From the entry lagniappe
  • They were one means by which to rise above exiguities and weather the turbulences in a precarious world.2002, Martin Bruegel, “Exchange and the Creation of the Neighborhood in the Late Eighteenth Century”, in Farm, Shop, Landing: The Rise of…. From the entry exiguity
  • Overhanging her precarious body was a jaundiced face whose skin resembled a sheet of parchment paper punctured by two emotionless eyes.2001, Dan Brown, Deception Point, →ISBN, page 72. From the entry jaundiced
  • Suarez told the Carter administration that 'Ulsterisation' of the Basque problem would present a serious threat to Spain's precarious democratic regime.1978, Jane's Information Group, Foreign Report. From the entry Ulsterisation
  • I was a poverty-ridden student striving for life in a system which makes the very existence of a scholar precarious.1933 January, Robert E. Howard, “The Cairn on the Headland”, in Strange Tales, volume 3, number 1. From the entry poverty-ridden
  • A few spindly trees cling to the sides of the gorge, but their roothold on the tiny patches of soil gathered in cracks is precarious.2004, Richard Fortey, The Earth, Folio Society, published 2011, page 98. From the entry roothold
  • In full decolonization mode, Greenlanders also have abandoned the Danish names that once gave some of us a precarious toehold on their island's geography.2001 May 20, James Brooke, “Where Icebergs Are Born”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 11 Jun 2017. From the entry decolonization
  • Some were indeed powerful men belonging to powerful families, exercising authority and influence, but the vagueries of colonial economic conditions made their holdings precarious.1980, Nicholas P. Cushner, Lords of the Land: sugar, wine, and Jesuit estates of coastal Peru, 1600-1767, page 14. From the entry vaguery
  • Why, I ask, are plants of this description permitted a precarious existence, an offense to the artistic sense, under the name of house plants?1904, Mrs. I.S. Rhoades, “House Plants in the Home”, in Transactions of the Illinois State Horticultural Society, page 381. From the entry elbow plant
  • All nine Philippine-occupied outposts exist in a precarious umbilical relationship to the Philippine mainland, reliant on regular navy supply missions and acutely vulnerable to blockade by Chinese vessels.2024 January 16, Sebastian Strangio, “Philippines to Upgrade South China Sea Outposts, Military Chief Says”, in The Diplomat, archived…. From the entry Nanshan
  • Moviegoing is no longer what it used to be, and the machinery that fed it is at present a Frankensteinian hybrid of tech, media, private equity and precarious labor.2022 June 2, A. O. Scott, “Are the Movies Liberal?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 04 Jun 2022. From the entry frankensteinian
  • We’re Open is categorised as mallsoft, the vaporwave subgenre which evokes the sounds and atmosphere of shopping malls, and which obliquely references their current, precarious state.2021, Roisin Kiberd, The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through the Internet, Serpent’s Tail, →ISBN. From the entry mallsoft
  • Due to the ways in which they unsettle typical notions of what the work of cheffing entails and who performs it, their position within the profession is precarious.2016, Marcia Texler Segal, Gender and Food: From Production to Consumption and After. From the entry cheffing
  • “There it is, written in black and white—printed, no less!” On account of his still-stuck foot, Owl relishes his triumph in a precarious balance on a branch.2014, Alan Bertrand, Glee, page 109. From the entry wingpit
  • Thus, the gnome concerning the precarious nature of, and the potential suffering in, human life sent by the gods uttered by Electra is deconstructed by her choice of paradigm.2003, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Tragedy and Athenian Religion, page 386. From the entry gnome
  • He who is incapable will be precarious to be on, but he who is able will become the most powerful person in the PRC once he has been on.1990 May 30, Hsiao-shih Cheng, Party-military Relations In The Prc And Taiwan: Paradoxes Of Control, Westview Press. From the entry tigerback
  • Those involved in producing food and fiber in the United States simply cannot withstand another round of narrow-sighted budget negotiations which leaves them in an even more financially precarious position.1990, United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Budget, Views and Estimates of Committees of the House, page 6. From the entry narrow-sighted

Meaning of precarious

  1. adjective Dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous.
  2. adjective Depending on the intention of another.
  3. adjective Relating to incipient caries.

Full definition of precarious

Questions about precarious in a sentence

How do you use precarious in a sentence?
Precarious is used as an adjective. For example: “Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of it was so precarious.”
What is a short sentence with precarious?
“The existence of Jewish partisans was precarious.”
What does precarious mean?
Precarious means dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: precarious (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use precarious in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/precarious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.