precipitous
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American Heritage Dictionary (3)
- adjective Resembling a precipice; extremely steep. See Synonyms at steep1.
- adjective Having several precipices: a precipitous bluff.
- adjective Usage Problem Extremely rapid, hasty, or abrupt; precipitate: "The change has included a precipitous collapse of Communist authority” (New York Times). See Usage Note at precipitate.
Century Dictionary (5)
GNU Webster's 1913 (1)
WordNet (2)
Elsewhere on the web
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- She was met with blank stares, so she tried again. — The Witness
- So precipitous was his move that he caught her off guard. — The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- His haste is precipitous, his choice distasteful to me. — The Coelura
- Men, stamping their boots and slapping their mittened hands against the cold, stared northwards at the heaped hills that were rocky, precipitous, and held by the enemy. — Sharpe's Regiment
- " I smile, thinking about his reflective letters, on yellow ruled paper, words written without margins, precipitous, as if they would have fallen right off the page without the adhesive structure of sentence. — Songs of the Humpback Whale
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View all »Etymologies (3)
American Heritage Dictionary (1)
- Probably from obsolete precipitious, from Latin praecipitium, precipice; see precipice.
Century Dictionary (1)
GNU Webster's 1913 (1)
WordNet
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Pronunciations
/ (prĭ-sĭpˈĭ-təs)/
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American Heritage Dictionary