precious
See also: Precious
English
Alternative forms
- pretious (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English precious, borrowed from Old French precios (“valuable, costly, precious, beloved, also affected, finical”), from Latin pretiōsus (“of great value, costly, dear, precious”), from pretium (“value, price”); see price.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈpɹɛʃ.əs/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (file) - Rhymes: -ɛʃəs
Adjective
precious (comparative more precious, superlative most precious)
- Of high value or worth.
- 2013 August 16, Polly Toynbee, “Britain's booming birthrate”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 10, page 21:
- People are a good thing, the most precious resource in a rich economy, so the progressive-minded feel. Only misanthropists disagree or the dottier Malthusians who send green-ink tweets deploring any state assistance for child-rearing.
- The crown had many precious gemstones. This building work needs site access, and tell the city council that I don't care about a few lorry tyre ruts across their precious grass verge.
-
- Regarded with love or tenderness.
- My precious daughter is to marry.
- (derogatory) Treated with too much reverence.
- He spent hours painting the eyes of the portrait, which his fellow artists regarded as a bit precious.
- (informal, derogatory) Blasted; damned.
- 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby:
- It’s all owing to your precious caution that they got hold of it. If you had let me burn it, and taken my word that it was gone, it would have been a heap of ashes behind the fire, instead of being whole and sound, inside of my great-coat.
-
- (derogatory) Contrived to be cute or charming.
- 2012 May 24, Nathan Rabin, “Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3”, in The Onion AV Club:
- In the abstract, Stuhlbarg’s twinkly-eyed sidekick suggests Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 by way of late-period Robin Williams with an alien twist, but Stuhlbarg makes a character that easily could have come across as precious into a surprisingly palatable, even charming man.
-
- (colloquial) Thorough; utter.
- a precious rascal
Synonyms
- (of high value): dear, valuable
- (contrived to charm): saccharine, syrupy, twee
Derived terms
- nonprecious
- Precious Blood
- precious metal
- precious stone
- preciously
- preciousness
- semiprecious
Related terms
- appraise
- appreciate
- depreciate
- praise
- preciosity
- precious few
- precious little
- price
Translations
of high value or worth
|
regarded with love
|
contrived to be cute
|
Noun
precious (plural preciouses)
- Someone (or something) who is loved; a darling.
- 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
- “It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?”
- 1909, Mrs. Teignmouth Shore, The Pride of the Graftons (page 57)
- She sat down with the dogs in her lap. "I won't neglect you for any one, will I, my preciouses?"
- 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Adverb
precious (not comparable)
- Very; an intensifier.
- There is precious little we can do.
- precious few pictures of him exist
Usage notes
This adverb is chiefly used before few and little; usage with other adjectives (slight, small, scant) is much more sporadic, and is in any case limited to the semantic field of “little, small, scarce, few”.
Translations
intensifier — see very
Further reading
precious on Wikipedia.Wikipedia - precious in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- precious in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911