(a.) Depending on the will or pleasure of another; held by courtesy; liable to be changed or lost at the pleasure of another; as, precarious privileges.
(a.) Held by a doubtful tenure; depending on unknown causes or events; exposed to constant risk; not to be depended on for certainty or stability; uncertain; as, a precarious state of health; precarious fortunes.
Example Sentences:
(1) This case demonstrates that the manifestations may be delayed and that urgent surgical intervention may be lifesaving despite the precarious status of these patients.
(2) Enlargement to include poorer states such as Armenia, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan would make the balance of the EEU even more precarious.
(3) Matthew Taylor was appointed by Theresa May last October to review employment practices in the light of concerns about the precarious nature of work, particularly in the gig economy.
(4) The diagnosis has usually been made only at autopsy, and early surgical intervention has often been withheld because of the patient's precarious hematological status.
(5) Rather than experiencing a slowdown in its frenetic building sector, however, Kabul is increasingly overrun with precarious apartment blocks.
(6) One suggestion is to abandon the scheme in London and south-east England but continue it in the north and Midlands, where market conditions are less precarious.
(7) What’s left for such workers is the same as their blue-collar counterparts: lower wages, precarious work and a lot of borrowing.
(8) After more than a quarter of a century of camping out, the house, with its seven flights of stairs (a trial to Lessing in her final years), seemed almost to be supported by a precarious interior scaffolding of piles of books and shelves.
(9) Some of these are functions that would once have been taken on through squatting – and sometimes still are, as at Open House , a social centre recently and precariously opened in London's Elephant & Castle, an area torn apart by rampant gentrification, where estates are flogged off to developers with zero commitment to public housing and the aforementioned "shopping village" is located in a derelict estate.
(10) But I think that can be repaired.” Although Senate Republican leaders have been more willing to rally behind Trump, their members find themselves in a decidedly precarious position.
(11) The financial markets are keenly aware of Britain's precarious position.
(12) Not infrequently the only unilateral care overlooks important aspects, which are precarious for the course of the disease.
(13) The predilection of rectal stricture and its proposed precursor, salmonella ulcerative proctitis, for the middle third of the rectum was attributed to a normally precarious arterial supply which renders the rectum unusually susceptible to ischemic injury and decreases its reparative capacity.
(14) Despite public homage to the knowledge economy, this new regime seems designed to make the careers of the next generation of academics as precarious and unrewarding as possible.
(15) The precarious position of small schools is due to the loss of the local funding formula, and with it local democratic control.
(16) Buses drop workers on the roads and they make the precarious walk through the dark to their homes.
(17) When compared with classification by number of diseased vessels and by arteriographic score of Friesinger, the nonprecarious cases had better prognoses than the precarious.
(18) When people say it doesn’t matter who you vote for, in this election, in this seat, in this city, it really will.” Becca, who has spent the past two years in poorly paid and precarious part-time jobs, is one of 12 people recruited for the last of five focus groups organised by qualitative polling firm BritainThinks, working in partnership with the Guardian, to examine five key battleground seats and the larger political themes that will help decide the election.
(19) The AIDS situation highlights the precarious balance between individual rights and the public welfare, patients' rights, and the rights of nurses and their professional obligations.
(20) According to new research from the University of Exeter, women at the top of the ladder are being promoted into risky and precarious leadership positions where the chance of failure is high.
Uncertain
Definition:
(a.) Not certain; not having certain knowledge; not assured in mind; distrustful.
(a.) Irresolute; inconsonant; variable; untrustworthy; as, an uncertain person; an uncertain breeze.
(1) However, the mechanism of the inhibitory action is still somewhat uncertain.
(2) Of course the job is not done and we will continue to remain vigilant to all risks, particularly when the global economic situation is so uncertain,” the chancellor said in a statement.
(3) The functional significance of these early changes in the nodal region is uncertain.
(4) Preservation of dopaminergic and H1 neurotransmission, probably within the blood barrier, is needed to allow the neuroendocrine transduction of cholinergic inputs, whereas the role of 5-HT neurotransmission remains uncertain.
(5) The nature of these infiltrative foci remains uncertain; however, they are unlikely to have been of neoplastic origin and may be due to interleukin-2-induced lymphocytic infiltration.
(6) Whether or not any alteration in disease progression will accrue from demonstrated local downstaging is, of course, uncertain.
(7) Similarly, it appears that acute hydronephrosis or worsening of an existing hydronephrosis has been somewhat overlooked as a possible cause of uncertain abdominal pain during pregnancy.
(8) In 11 patients, the electrophysiological mechanism remained uncertain.
(9) The nature of the cystatin C-immunoreactive substance in some of these vascular lesions is uncertain, but it might conceivably play an additional important role in the pathogenesis of brain hemorrhage in these cases.
(10) The mechanism of action is still uncertain but it is believed by some workers to be similar to that of a beta-adrenergic stimulator.
(11) Assays of drug levels in blood and of other biochemical characteristics of psychiatric patients are being proposed for clinical application, although their utility in practice remains uncertain.
(12) In 26 patients, including the two reported here, etiology was uncertain (idiopathic aneurysm of the left ventricle) in as much as malformation or an infectious disease might have been the underlying cause.
(13) Instead of inevitable defeat there is uncertain cop-out.
(14) The aetiology remains at present uncertain and therefore rational therapeutic strategies are difficult to plan.
(15) It was concluded that (1) there is a group of patients whose histories of poliomyelitis are uncertain, and (2) the lack of clear evidence for previous denervation after extensive electrodiagnostic testing is a valid means for excluding the diagnosis of postpoliomyelitis syndrome.
(16) Although approximately 24,000 adolescents were questioned, the investigations together provide an uncertain picture of the habits as these are not representative for Danish adolescents.
(17) McCall said the outlook remained uncertain: “The economic and operating environment remains uncertain, following the high levels of disruption and more recently the UK’s referendum decision to leave the EU, as well as the recent events in Turkey and Nice, which have affected consumer confidence.
(18) The significance of this event is uncertain; cleaved NGF demonstrates bioactivity and no function has been attributed to the octapeptide produced (NGF-OP; Ser-Ser-Thr-His-Pro-Val-Phe-His).
(19) While the histogenesis of these tumors remain uncertain, it is necessary to recognize that these aggressive neoplasms may occur primarily in the skin.
(20) Estimates of the number of eventual TA-AIDS cases to be seen are considerably more uncertain and require additional assumptions about the incubation distribution.