PERILOUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does perilous mean? 

• PERILOUS (adjective)
  The adjective PERILOUS has 1 sense:

1. fraught with danger

  Familiarity information: PERILOUS used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PERILOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fraught with danger

Synonyms:

parlous; perilous; precarious; touch-and-go

Context example:

dangerous surgery followed by a touch-and-go recovery

Similar:

dangerous; unsafe (involving or causing danger or risk; liable to hurt or harm)

Derivation:

peril (a venture undertaken without regard to possible loss or injury)

peril (a source of danger; a possibility of incurring loss or misfortune)

peril (a state of danger involving risk)

perilousness (the state of being dangerous)

 Context examples 

I know my position is perilous, and I may say frankly that yours is even more perilous.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And these perilous contacts from all these strange hands he must endure.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

“Come, mother,” quoth he, “it is not so very perilous a passage.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was on the very evening of our perilous adventure with Challenger's home-made balloon that the change came in our fortunes.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you have benevolently restored me to life.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

There are many open questions about 55 Cancri e, especially: Why has the atmosphere not been stripped away from the planet, given the perilous radiation environment of the star?

(Lava or Not, Exoplanet 55 Cancri e Likely to have Atmosphere, NASA)

Cheese-Face wanted to demur,—Martin could see that,—but Cheese-Face's old perilous pride was touched before the two gangs.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But, like all happiness, it did not last long, for as sure as she had just reached the heart of the story, the sweetest verse of a song, or the most perilous adventure of her traveler, a shrill voice called, Josy-phine!

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It was long ere I could close an eye, and heaven knows I had matter enough for thought in the man whom I had slain that afternoon, in my own most perilous position, and above all, in the remarkable game that I saw Silver now engaged upon—keeping the mutineers together with one hand and grasping with the other after every means, possible and impossible, to make his peace and save his miserable life.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)