different between crucial vs precarious

English

Etymology

1706, from French crucial, a medical term for ligaments of the knee (which cross each other), from Latin crux, crucis (“cross”) (English crux), from the Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, to bend”).

The meaning “decisive, critical” is extended from a logical term, Instantias Crucis, adopted by Francis Bacon in his influential Novum Organum (1620); the notion is of cross fingerboard signposts at forking roads, thus a requirement to choose.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?u?.??l/
• Rhymes: -u???l

Adjective

crucial (comparative more crucial, superlative most crucial)

1. Essential or decisive for determining the outcome or future of something; extremely important; vital.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:important
2. (archaic) Cruciform or cruciate; cross-shaped.
3. (slang, especially Jamaican, Bermuda) Very good; excellent; particularly applied to reggae music.

Derived terms

• crucial experiment

Related terms

• cross
• crux

Translations

References

French

Etymology

From a root of Latin crux (“cross”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?y.sjal/

Adjective

crucial (feminine singular cruciale, masculine plural cruciaux, feminine plural cruciales)

1. cruciform
2. crucial, critical, vital

Further reading

• “crucial” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Portuguese

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: cru?ci?al

Adjective

crucial m or f (plural cruciais, comparable)

1. crucial

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:crucial.

Romanian

Etymology

From French crucial

Adjective

crucial m or n (feminine singular crucial?, masculine plural cruciali, feminine and neuter plural cruciale)

1. pivotal

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

From English crucial.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /k?u??jal/, [k?u??jal]
• IPA^(key): (Latin America) /k?u?sjal/, [k?u?sjal]

Adjective

crucial (plural cruciales)

1. crucial

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /p???k???i.?s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /p???k??i.?s/
• Rhymes: -???i?s
• Hyphenation: pre?ca?ri?ous

Etymology 1

From Latin prec?rius (“begged for, obtained by entreaty”), from prex, precis (“prayer”). Compare French précaire, Portuguese precário, and Spanish and Italian precario.

Adjective

precarious (comparative more precarious, superlative most precarious)

1. (comparable) Dangerously insecure or unstable; perilous.
2. (law) Depending on the intention of another.

Usage notes

Because the pre- element of precarious derives from prex and not the preposition prae, this term cannot — etymologically speaking — be written as *præcarious.

Quotations

• 1906, Jack London, White Fang, part I, ch III,

  Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of it was so precarious.

Synonyms

• (not held or fixed securely and likely to fall over): unsteady, rickety, shaky, tottering, unsafe, unstable, wobbly

Derived terms

Related terms

• pray

Translations

Further reading

• precarious in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• precarious in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Precarious in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Etymology 2

pre- + carious

Adjective

precarious (not comparable)

1. (dentistry) Relating to incipient caries.