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precious

adj
/ˈpɹɛʃ.əs/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English precious, borrowed from Old French precios (“valuable, costly, precious, beloved, also affected, finical”), from Latin pretiōsus (“of great value, costly, dear, precious”), from pretium (“value, price”); see price.

  1. derived from pretiōsus — “of great value, costly, dear, precious”
  2. borrowed from precios — “valuable, costly, precious, beloved, also affected, finical”
  3. inherited from precious

Definitions

  1. Of high value or worth.

    • The crown had many precious gemstones. This building work needs site access, and tell the city council that I don't care about a few lorry tyre ruts across their precious grass verge.
    • People are a good thing, the most precious resource in a rich economy, so the progressive-minded feel. Only misanthropists disagree or the dottier Malthusians who send green-ink tweets deploring any state assistance for child-rearing.

  2. Regarded with love or tenderness.

    • The way my partner looks at me is just so precious.

  3. Treated with too much reverence.

    • He spent hours painting the eyes of the portrait, which his fellow artists regarded as a bit precious.
  4. ›+ 9 more definitions

    1. Excessively complicated.

    2. Extremely protective or strict (about something).

      • Writers are often very precious about their work.
      • Pro chefs can be very precious about their kit. Watch a bartender trying to borrow a simple, cheap fruit-knife from the kitchen and you'll see what I mean.

    3. Blasted

      Blasted; damned.

      • It’s all owing to your precious caution that they got hold of it. If you had let me burn it, and taken my word that it was gone, it would have been a heap of ashes behind the fire, instead of being whole and sound, inside of my great-coat.

    4. Contrived to be cute or charming.

    5. Thorough

      Thorough; utter.

      • a precious rascal

    6. Someone (or something) who is loved

      Someone (or something) who is loved; a darling.

      • “It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?”
      • She sat down with the dogs in her lap. "I won't neglect you for any one, will I, my preciouses?"
      • What'll it take to get it through to you precious? I'm over this, why do you wanna throw it away like this? Such a mess, why would I want to watch you?

    7. Very

      Very; an intensifier.

      • There is precious little we can do.
      • precious few pictures of him exist

    8. A surname transferred from the nickname, originating as a male or female nickname.

    9. A female given name from English.

The neighborhood

Derived

eight-precious, non-precious, nonprecious, overprecious, Precious Blood, precious coral, preciously, precious metal, preciousness, precious stone, semiprecious, semi-precious, unprecious

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at precious. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01precious02love03darling04affectionate05proceeding06transaction07goods08freight09vessel

A definitional loop anchored at precious. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at precious

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA