Word of the Day Archive
Tuesday December 3, 2002
parlous \PAR-luhs\ , adjective:
Attended with peril; fraught with danger; hazardous.
It was a parlous time on the Continent, when Communists and fascists vied brutally for supremacy.
-- Howard Simons, "Shots Seen Round the World", New York Times, September 22, 1985
The Crisis left Indonesia's state finances in such a parlous state that the government is now heavily exposed to future risks.
-- Penny Crisp and Jose Manuel Tesoro, "The Buck Stops Here", Asiaweek, July 7, 2000
Parlous derives from Old French perillous, perilleus, from Latin periculosus, adjective form of periculum, "peril, danger, hazard."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for parlous
