Pronounced: sock-DAH-lih-juhr, noun
Notes: This is a word I know of, but I didn’t know the definition – do you know it?
Yesterday’s word
The word precipitous means
- resembling a precipice (a cliff with a nearly vertical overhanging face)
- extremely steep
- abrupt, rapid, or hasty (applied to a worsening situation)
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1600s
Background / Comments
I am familiar with the third definition (as in the phrase ‘let’s not take any precipitous actions’), but when I saw the first two definitions, they are logical, giving the related word precipitous. Our word came from the obsolete French word precipiteux, which came from the Latin word praécipitare (to cast down headlong), which is made up of prae- (before) and caput (head).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 