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

This can threaten victims’ own custody of their children and cause further economic precarity, increasing the risk of lethal violence. —Kaitlyn M. Sims, The Conversation, 2 Dec. 2025

But underscoring the very funny adventures that follow is an acknowledgment of how exhausting living in economic precarity can be. —Alison Willmore, Vulture, 1 Dec. 2025

Read Charlie Warzel on the precarity that ChatGPT introduced to the world, Ian Bogost on how ChatGPT broke reality, or browse more AI coverage from The Atlantic. —Lila Shroff, The Atlantic, 1 Dec. 2025

The pandemic brought to the fore pay disparities at museums, with the wage gap between leadership and those on the front lines—who were asked to return to in-person work first, even as many reckoned with job precarity and a lack of insurance—coming into especially sharp relief. —News Desk, Artforum, 18 Nov. 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