Noun: precipice
| Singular | precipice |
| Plural | precipices |
Sample Sentences
-
I resolved to remove my tent from the place where it stood, which was just under the hanging precipice of the hill; and which, if it should be shaken again, would certainly fall upon my tent[…] [1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC:]
-
to stand on a precipice
-
In emailed comments supporting the new initiative, the laureate professor Noam Chomsky said: “Humans are marching towards a precipice. When we reach it, unthinkable catastrophe is inevitable. […]” [2022 September 14, Arthur Neslen, quoting Noam Chomsky, “Health groups call for global fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty”, in The Guardian:]
Nouns inflected like precipice
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. First attested in 1598, from Middle French precipice, from Latin praecipitium (“a steep place”), from praeceps (“steep”), from prae + caput (“head”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“head”).
2. Distantly related to precept through Latin praecipiō (“to teach”), from prae + capiō (“take”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kap-, *keh₂p- (“to hold; to seize”). See: Latin Nouns '
praecipitium', Latin Nouns '
praecipiō'.