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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
precipitous
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
decline
▪ The top graph on page 160 shows the precipitous decline in the number of people involved in awareness-driven initiatives.
▪ Much of the precipitous decline in return on equity was due to a rise in labor costs over those years.
▪ Calvin Welch of the Council for Community Housing said aid for housing low-and middle-income people is in precipitous decline.
▪ The most alarming statistic was the state of the game before the advent of this precipitous decline.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a precipitous decision
▪ a precipitous drop in property values
▪ A precipitous path led down the cliff.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A few hundred steps down a gorge, then up the precipitous rock wall.
▪ If a bear suddenly appears, the goats head for precipitous ledges where the less agile predator can not follow.
▪ Looking back, the precipitous shreds of sheeting rain effectively sanctioned a cordon between himself and what had gone before.
▪ More telling are the precipitous cost increases at state universities, which account for four out of every five college diplomas.
▪ Much of the precipitous decline in return on equity was due to a rise in labor costs over those years.
▪ The precipitous discharge of some young children, I think, was avoided.
▪ The precipitous nature of the slide is also noteworthy.
▪ There were no drainage ditches here, the shoulders too abrupt, the slope too precipitous, to collect water.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Precipitous

Precipitous \Pre*cip"i*tous\, a. [L. praeceps, -cipitis: cf. OF. precipiteux. See Precipice.]

  1. Steep, like a precipice; as, a precipitous cliff or mountain.

  2. Headlong; as, precipitous fall.

  3. Hasty; rash; quick; sudden; precipitate; as, precipitous attempts.
    --Sir T. Browne. ``Marian's low, precipitous `Hush!'''
    --Mrs. Browning. [1913 Webster] -- Pre*cip"i*tous*ly, adv. -- Pre*cip"i*tous*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
precipitous

1640s, "rash, headlong," from obsolete French precipiteux (16c.), from Vulgar Latin *praecipitosus, from praecipitare (see precipitation). Related: Precipitously; precipitousness.

Wiktionary
precipitous

a. 1 steep, like a precipice; as, a precipitous cliff or mountain. 2 headlong; as, precipitous fall. 3 hasty; rash; quick; sudden; precipitate; as, precipitous attempts.

WordNet
precipitous
  1. adj. done with very great haste and without due deliberation; "hasty marriage seldom proveth well"- Shakespeare; "hasty makeshifts take the place of planning"- Arthur Geddes; "rejected what was regarded as an overhasty plan for reconversion"; "wondered whether they had been rather precipitate in deposing the king" [syn: hasty, overhasty, precipitate, precipitant]

  2. characterized by precipices; "a precipitous bluff"

  3. extremely steep; "an abrupt canyon"; "the precipitous rapids of the upper river"; "the precipitous hills of Chinese paintings"; "a sharp drop" [syn: abrupt, sharp]

Usage examples of "precipitous".

He was like an acrophobe edging along a precipitous path, scared to look down, afraid of losing his balance and falling accidentally, afraid too of the impulse that might lead him to plunge purposefully into the void.

Then at last Badoglio could come at Ras Muguletu, the war minister of Ethiopia, with his entire army waiting like an old lion in the caves and precipitous heights of the natural mountain fortress of Ambo Aradam.

The overfalls of rock and the unfriendly thorn-trees, selfishly taking up all the room, necessitate frequent zigzags up and down the rocky, precipitous banks.

After a long, precipitous slope into the earth, the Raith Deeps opened up into a cavern bigger than most Paris cathedrals.

But as more arrows whizzed among them, Torquil was obliged to make a precipitous dismount as his valiant little rouncy went down with a piteous squeal, a feathered shaft deep in its chest and blood spraying from its nostrils.

The sea rose in precipitous mountain-masses, and anon wallowed in black abysmal chasms,--the clouds flew in a fierce rack overhead like the forms of huge witches astride on eagle-shaped monsters,--and with it all there was a close heat in the air, notwithstanding the tearing wind,--a heat and a sulphureous smell, suggestive of some pent-up hellish fire that but waited its opportunity to break forth and consume the land.

Kearny Street, extending northward, makes giant strides on the precipitous climb of Telegraph Hill, where topply buildings cling precariously to the heights.

These are on the very brink of the mesa, and have been built in recesses in the crowning ledge of sandstone of such size that they could conveniently be walled up on the outside, the outer surface of rude walls being continuous with the precipitous rock face of the mesa.

He leveled off, keeping his weight back but centered, adjusting the airfoil to slow the precipitous drop.

How many students of Euclid have been repelled by the Pons Asinorum, as by a lofty and precipitous rock, which no help of ladders could enable them to scale!

Peak of Sancy is the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these mountain heights.

Jondalar had lived in caves in steep cliffs with precipitous ledges, but nothing quite like the home of this Cave of Shamudoi.

No man could survive those climbs, not if the defenders were raining round shot and rocks down the precipitous slopes.

The mountains through which it forces its way on the other side are precipitous and wooded to their summits with coniferae, while the less abrupt side, along which the tract is carried, curves into green knolls in its lower slopes, sprinkled with grand Spanish chestnuts scarcely yet in blossom, with maples which have not yet lost the scarlet which they wear in spring as well as autumn, and with many flowering trees and shrubs which are new to me, and with an undergrowth of red azaleas, syringa, blue hydrangea--the very blue of heaven--yellow raspberries, ferns, clematis, white and yellow lilies, blue irises, and fifty other trees and shrubs entangled and festooned by the wistaria, whose beautiful foliage is as common as is that of the bramble with us.

I must say that until your arrival and intervention, my opinion of your kind was undergoing a most precipitous droppage indeed.