parlous
Attended with peril; dangerous, riskyAttended with peril; dangerous, risky.
» Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.
Meaning
3 sensesAttended with peril; dangerous, risky.
The situation became parlous when the weather made resupply impossible.
Appalling, dire, terrible.
in a parlous state
(England, also, dialectal, obsolete, rare)Dangerously clever or cunning; also, remarkably good or unusual.
- fraught with danger
Examples
1 sentencesThou art in a parlous state, shepherd.
Origin
From Middle English parles, parlous, perlous, [and other forms], a contraction of perilousFrom 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).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
more parlous, most parlous| Comparative | more parlous Lesson |
|---|---|
| Superlative | most parlous Lesson |
regular
Synonyms
14 synonyms- fraught with danger:perilousprecarioustouch-and-go
Word family
8 related wordsLessons for this word
2 lessons- A2Comparatives — Because it has a comparative form
- A2Superlatives — Because it has a superlative form