precarity

From precar(ious) +‎ -ity, probably after French précarité.^[1] Compare New Latin precārietās.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɹəˈkɛɹɪti/

• Audio (General American):

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• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɹəˈkɛəɹɪti/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛəɹɪti
• Hyphenation: pre‧ca‧ri‧ty

precarity (countable and uncountable, plural precarities)

1. Synonym of precariousness.
2. (sociology) A condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare.

   Synonym: insecurity

   • 2014, Roland Paulsen, Empty Labor: Idleness and Workplace Resistance, →ISBN, page 82:

     A phenomenon that catches a general tendency towards obscurity is what Standing calls "uptitling" - to give a job a high-sounding epithet to conceal its precarity and, I would say, its substance.

   • 2021, Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land, page 622:

     Does the boy sense, already, the precarity of all this?

• bioprecarity

• see: precarious