Link Centre Dictionary

parlous

par·lous

UK/ˈpɑːləs/ US/ˈpɑɹləs/ uncommon archaic obsolete rare

adjective

1.

fraught with danger

  • “dangerous waters”
  • “a parlous journey on stormy seas”
  • “a perilous voyage across the Atlantic in a small boat”
  • “the precarious life of an undersea diver”
  • “dangerous surgery followed by a touch-and-go recovery”
Synonyms
Similar

Origin

From Middle English parles, parlous, perlous, [and other forms], a contraction of perilous (“dangerous; dreadful, terrible; morally corrupt, sinful, wicked; inauspicious, unlucky”) (and thus a doublet of perilous), from Old French perilleus, perillos, perillous, perilluse, perilleuse, perilleux (“very dangerous, perilous”) (modern French périlleux), from Latin perīculōsus (“dangerous, hazardous, perilous”), from perīculum (“danger, hazard, peril, risk”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to go through, carry forth, try”)) + -ōsus (suffix meaning ‘full of, prone to’ forming adjectives).

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.