PRECARIOUS
It’s a word that’s been on my mind lately. Everywhere you look, things seem precarious: flip on the world, national or even local news…yikes! Precarious. Friends and family with scary health circumstances….precarious. Financial needs vs checkbook balance…precarious. Suddenly, life feels uncertain. Risky. Perilous. Insecure. Dangerous.
So being a writer and a word nerd, I did an etymology study of the word precarious and it was pretty eye opening:
Precarious is a legal word meaning, “held through the favor of another,” from Latin precarius “obtained by asking, praying or mere favor,” from prex “entreaty, prayer.”
The notion of “dependent on the will of another” led to the extended sense of, “risky, dangerous, uncertain.”
