Etymologically
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precarius

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 13:24. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [prɛˈkaː.ri.ʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [preˈkaː.ri.us][1]

Forms

precārius (feminine precāria, neuter precārium); first/second-declension adjective[1] Also spelled -eus.[2] Inscriptions also have praec-.[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin prex (“prayer, request”) + -ārius.[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cicero,[4] but Lewis & Short think Cicero used it perhaps only as the adverb precāriō “by request”, which Plautus and Terence already have, and find the adjective frequent only from the Augustan period.[5] Livy writes of help not merely begged as a favour but claimed as a due.[5]

Semantic evolution

It is what is given as a favour or held on sufferance, depending on another's goodwill: Livy has a tribune's power bringing help granted by favour rather than by right, and Tacitus a life held on sufferance.[2][5] Ovid uses it of a borrowed form.[2] In law the neuter precārium is something granted at request for as long as the grantor allows, and the adjective concerns tenancy at will.[2][5] From this it comes to mean uncertain, insecure, precarious: the elder Seneca speaks of a priestess whose chastity is precarious, and Seneca the philosopher of the wise man counting his body among precarious things.[2][5] Words may be ambiguous, and Fronto has a shaky writing hand.[2] In Medieval Latin it concerns the precarial grant.[6] Church Latin glosses it uncertain, precarious.[7] English precarious (1640s) was first a legal word, held through the favour of another.[8]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus has the adverb precāriō.[5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero.[4][5]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of help granted as a favour.[5]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of precarious things.[5]
  • 1640s – English precarious.[8]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Obtained by entreaty, given as a favour, held on sufferance; borrowed.[2][5][1]
  2. (law) Concerning tenancy at will.[2]
  3. Uncertain, precarious, transient; ambiguous; of the hand, shaky.[2][5][1][7]
  4. Of persons, suppliant.[2]
  5. (Medieval Latin) By way of a precarial grant.[6]

Word family

  • precāria

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com