词汇释义
precariousUK /prɪˈkeə.ri.əs/ US /prɪˈker.i.əs/TEM8 GRE
1. adj, If your situation is precarious, you are not in complete control of events and might fail in what you are doing at any moment.局势不确定的，不稳定的，危险的
2. Something that is precarious is not securely held in place and seems likely to fall or collapse at any moment.不稳固的，不牢靠的
外刊例句
1. Humiliated over his wife Iris's affair and the £50,000 loan she secured for her lover; embattled due to allegations about his financial dealings with property developers and revelations over his and his wife's parliamentary expenses, Robinson's position on the surface at least appears to be precarious.(The Guardian)
2. David Cameron's plan for a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union leaves the UK's EU status more precarious that at any point for 40 years.(The Guardian)
3. As the highest cost major iron ore producer with $11bn of debt, Fortescue was in a more precarious position than other Pilbara producers, he said.(The Guardian - Business)
4. But the truth is it already has, and it is hard to see how Kiev can retrieve the lost territory without the use of force on a scale that would be hard to contain – and that the precarious Kiev government may not even have.(The Guardian - Opinion)
5. And whether they're recent arrivals or freshly-minted graduates, they're being shunted off into low-paying jobs or into precarious underpaid self-employment.(The Guardian - Opinion)
6. Ironically, the body that waxes lyrical about the precarious state of the nation's finances is not exactly flushed with cash itself.(The Guardian)
7. Even from that precarious position, as Blair had anticipated, the new first minister made like Teddy Roosevelt, using his official residence, Bute House, as a bully pulpit to build support for the SNP and independence.(The Guardian)
8. Its financial position is far removed from the precarious status of residents of Benefits Street, a show which, like The Island, Gogglebox and the Educating series, has assisted the fightback.(The Guardian)
9. This sense of alienation comes from the trend of young people being increasingly pitted against each other, fighting for the same precarious jobs and terrified of taking risks while burdened with unprecedented debt.(The Guardian)
10. There is one private and precarious enterprise offering a GCSE Latin course to maintained schools, which I organise, with the support of the university outreach department and a loyal band of teachers who still believe in the Classics.(The Guardian)
11. "Too many [working people] have been driven from secure, full-time work," says the manifesto, "into precarious, badly paid jobs – many working on zero-hours contracts … Over five million people are in low-paid jobs, earning less than the living wage.(The Guardian - Opinion)
12. Becca, who has spent the past two years in poorly paid and precarious part-time jobs, is one of 12 people recruited for the last of five focus groups organised by qualitative polling firm BritainThinks, working in partnership with the Guardian, to examine five key battleground seats and the larger political themes that will help decide the election.(The Guardian)
13. You must always, when you are trying to piece together a recovery, foster those precarious conditions of greater confidence in the economy, you mustn't do anything to make that more difficult".(The Guardian)
14. "The political and educational challenge we now face is to find a way of constructively talking about culture, faith and immigration so that those who are most dispossessed can see the similarities of their precarious positions with those of marginalised ethnic or immigrant communities," Pilkington said.(The Guardian)
词汇搭配
precarious balance, existence, finance, hold, position, situation, condition
词汇来源
1640s, a legal word, "held through the favor of another," from Latin precarius "depending on favor, pertaining to entreaty, obtained by asking or praying," from prex (genitive precis) "entreaty, prayer" (from PIE root *prek- "to ask, entreat").
The notion of "dependent on the will of another" led to the extended sense "risky, dangerous, hazardous, uncertain" (1680s), but this was objected to. "No word is more unskillfully used than this with its derivatives. It is used for uncertain in all its senses; but it only means uncertain, as dependent on others ..." [Johnson].
近义词
dangerous, perilous, hazardous, risky, insecure, unsteady, unstable, unsafe
反义词
secure, stable, safe, firm, steady, reliable, dependable
【注】: 以上内容首发于爱翻译爱英语 。更多内容，请关注爱翻译爱英语 。
网友评论