different between urgent vs precarious

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French urgent (“pressing, impelling”), from Latin urg?ns, from urg?re (“to press”).

Pronunciation

• (UK, General Australian) IPA^(key): /???d??nt/
• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /??d??nt/
• Hyphenation: ur?gent

Adjective

urgent (comparative more urgent, superlative most urgent)

1. Requiring immediate attention.

   Synonyms: pressing, needly

Usage notes

The primary meaning of urgent is as a description of a pressing need. Especially in journalistic contexts, it is sometimes used by transference to describe the thing needed, or to mean "happening very soon", which some deem erroneous.

Derived terms

Related terms

• urge

Translations

Anagrams

• Gunter, gunter, gurnet

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin urgens.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /u???ent/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /ur??en/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /u??d??ent/

Adjective

urgent (masculine and feminine plural urgents)

1. urgent

Derived terms

• urgentment

Related terms

• urgència
• urgir

Further reading

• “urgent” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “urgent” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “urgent” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “urgent” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin urgens, present participle of urge?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /y?.???/

Adjective

urgent (feminine singular urgente, masculine plural urgents, feminine plural urgentes)

1. urgent

Derived terms

Related terms

See also

• pressé

Further reading

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

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?ur.?ent/, [??r??n?t?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?ur.d??ent/, [?urd???n?t?]

Verb

urgent

1. third-person plural present active indicative of urge?

Piedmontese

Alternative forms

• ürgent

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /yr?d????t/

Adjective

urgent

1. urgent

Romanian

Etymology

From French urgent, from Latin urgens.

Adjective

urgent m or n (feminine singular urgent?, masculine plural urgen?i, feminine and neuter plural urgente)

1. urgent

Declension

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.