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precipitous

adj
/pɹɪˈsɪpɪtəs/

Etymology

From obsolete French précipiteux, from Vulgar Latin *praecipitosus, from prae + caput (“head”). Equivalent to precipice (“steep”) + -ous.

  1. derived from praecipiō
  2. derived from *kap-✻
  3. derived from praecipitium
  4. borrowed from precipice
  5. suffixed as precipitous — “precipice + ous”

Definitions

  1. Steep, like a precipice

    • a precipitous cliff
    • a precipitous mountain
    • a precipitous decline

  2. Headlong

    • a precipitous fall

  3. Hasty

    Hasty; rash; quick; sudden

    • precipitous attempts
    • […]humans have been responsible for a precipitous decline of elephants, from perhaps 300,000 in the early 1970s to some 10,000 today.

The neighborhood

Derived

precipitously, precipitousness

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at precipitous. 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.

01precipitous02quick03rapid04brief05concise06truncated07abruptly08precipitously

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

8 hops · closes at precipitous

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