perilous
/ˈpɛɹ.ɪ.ləs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.18 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Three miles or more to our starboard is a low dim line. It is the Eastern shore of Central Africa. We are running to the southward, before the North East Monsoon, between the mainland and the reef that for hundreds of miles fringes this perilous coast."
- "The effects are already being felt. Gamma radiation is flooding through the gaps; the quick-breeding viruses are mutating through half the world, faster than the Medical Art can control them, so that millions of us are sneezing and choking—and dying, too, for lack of antibiotics and proper care. Air travel is a perilous thing; just today, a stratosphere roc crashed head-on into a fragment of the sky and was killed with all its passengers."
Etymology
From Middle English perilous, from Old French perilleus, equivalent to peril + -ous, from the noun peril, or from Latin perīculōsus. Doublet of periculous.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *per-, perilous, perilleus, perīculōsus
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Religion.
Inflected Forms
more perilous (comparative)
most perilous (superlative)
perelles (alternative, obsolete)
perillous (alternative, archaic)
perlous (alternative, obsolete)
per'lous (alternative, poetic)