precarity

noun

pre·​car·​i·​ty pri-ˈker-ə-tē 

: the state or condition of being precarious : precariousness

The older brother—Dave—raises the younger one, a responsibility that gives him a perpetual sense of life's urgency and precarity.

—Paul Elie

Job precarity can add to a number of social and economic challenges facing millennials including rising personal debts, growing costs of living, shrinking access to pensions and lower retirement savings.

—Arif Jetha

Examples of precarity in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Welfare spending and critical social services, for instance, become downstream necessities, mitigating the precarity and homelessness that directly result from an economic model built to serve the needs of the rich. —Daniel Wortel-London, New York Daily News, 26 June 2025

Most faculty are contracted adjunct workers and thus must typically reckon with job precarity, a lack of benefits, and comparatively low pay. —News Desk, Artforum, 23 May 2025

The study found that 38% of participants didn't have enough money to pay a bill in full or on time in the past year, demonstrating how financial precarity permeates daily life for these young adults. —First Place For Youth, Forbes.com, 1 May 2025

But underscoring the very funny adventures that follow is an acknowledgment of how exhausting living in economic precarity can be. —Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 6 Mar. 2025

Word History

Etymology

probably borrowed from French précarité, from précaire "granted or exercised only with the permission of another, insecure, uncertain" (going back to Middle French, borrowed from Latin precārius "given as a favor, uncertain, precarious") + -ité -ity

First Known Use

1910, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for precarity

• alterity
• asperity
• austerity
• celerity
• dexterity
• disparity
• hilarity
• molarity
• planarity
• polarity
• posterity
• prosperity