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

Yet, too often, nonprofits are forced to operate in a state of financial precarity, relying on a single source of funding or scrambling to adjust to shifting donor priorities. —Firaaz Azeez, Forbes.com, 15 May 2025

Others have disagreed or expanded the discussion, adding that financial precarity, mental health struggles, and rising costs of living have shaped Gen Z's social habits differently than previous generations. —Mohammed Soliman, MSNBC Newsweek, 28 Apr. 2025

Add to that the daily toll of burnout, racial trauma, economic precarity, and social fragmentation, and we are left with a deep, unspoken suffering that simmers just beneath the surface. —Devi Brown, Time, 24 Apr. 2025

The latter, of course, feels unattainable in a time of worker precarity and a resurgent grind culture. —Anna North, Vox, 27 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