Make Your Point > Archived Issues > PRECIPITOUS
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As promised, today we're checking out the word precipitous, an oh-so-useful adjective based on the verb precipitate, meaning "to hurl downward, or to provoke violently."
Let's start with the verb "precipitate." I've mentioned that it most literally means "to throw headfirst, to hurl or fling headlong." Here, "pre-" means "before" in the literal sense of "forth, in front of;" and the rest comes from the Latin caput, meaning "head." (There's not actually an element in the word that means "throw" or "hurl;" that part is implied.) Today, "precipitate" most often means "to cause something to happen in a sudden, violent, unthinking way," as in "The assassination precipitated the war."
Part of speech:
Pick the formal, serious, dramatic word "precipitous" to emphasize how suddenly and sharply something drops, falls, or just happens.
"The flagpole bearing the Stars and Stripes sticks out of the ground at a precipitous angle, like a javelin that made a bad landing."
Explain the meaning of "precipitous" without saying "steep" or "hasty."
Fill in the blanks: "(Some particular story) begins with the precipitous arrival of (some unexpected person or event)."
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
1.
The opposite of PRECIPITOUS could be
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