Library / English Dictionary

PERILOUS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fraught with danger

Example:

dangerous surgery followed by a touch-and-go recovery

Synonyms:

parlous; perilous; precarious; touch-and-go

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

dangerous; unsafe (involving or causing danger or risk; liable to hurt or harm)

Derivation:

peril (a venture undertaken without regard to possible loss or injury)

peril (a source of danger; a possibility of incurring loss or misfortune)

peril (a state of danger involving risk)

perilousness (the state of being dangerous)

Credits

 Context examples: 

But it took a subtler insight to read the grim smile which flickered over the smith’s mouth, or the smouldering fire which shone in his grey eyes, and it was only the old-timers who knew that, with his mighty heart and his iron frame, he was a perilous man to lay odds against.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As a matter of fact, burglars who have done a good stroke of business are, as a rule, only too glad to enjoy the proceeds in peace and quiet without embarking on another perilous undertaking.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There is no pass at the further end of the valley, and it is a perilous place should an enemy come upon us.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Herself fastidious and timid, she never awakened to the perilous trend of their intercourse.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He was suspicious of the looming bulks of the trees and of the dark shadows that might conceal all manner of perilous things.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

But it was not till the third day that we found them, all of them, the shears included, and, of all perilous places, in the pounding surf of the grim south-western promontory.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Mr. Waldron was a strict disciplinarian with a gift of acid humor, as exemplified upon the gentleman with the red tie, which made it perilous to interrupt him.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top: the stones rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I gained the summit.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Her monstrosities in the way of cattle would have taken prizes at an agricultural fair, and the perilous pitching of her vessels would have produced seasickness in the most nautical observer, if the utter disregard to all known rules of shipbuilding and rigging had not convulsed him with laughter at the first glance.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“This is a perilous man,” whispered an English man-at-arms, plucking at Aylward's sleeve.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)