precariousness

/prɪˈkɛriəsnɪs/

/prɪˈkɛriəsnɪs/

Precariousness is a state of being in danger or unsure about something. The precariousness of a small child balancing on a rock wall might cause you to wait below with your arms outstretched, ready to catch her.

A literal kind of precariousness is when your dizzy sister is teetering on a balance beam or your grandmother's favorite flowery teacup looks like it's too close to the edge of the coffee table. There's also the figurative precariousness of being dependent on luck or chance, like the precariousness of graduating from art school with a large amount of debt and no job in sight. The Latin root, precarius, means "obtained by asking or praying."

Definitions of precariousness

1. noun

   being unsettled or in doubt or dependent on chance
   “the precariousness of his income”

   synonyms: uncertainness, uncertainty

   types:

   doubt, doubtfulness, dubiousness, question

   uncertainty about the truth or factuality or existence of something

   indefiniteness, indefinity, indeterminacy, indeterminateness, indetermination

   the quality of being vague and poorly defined

   unpredictability

   lacking predictability

   improbability, improbableness

   the quality of being improbable

   fortuitousness

   the quality of happening accidentally and by lucky chance

   speculativeness

   the quality of being a conclusion or opinion based on supposition and conjecture rather than on fact or investigation

   inconclusiveness

   the quality of being inconclusive

   unlikelihood, unlikeliness

   the improbability of a specified outcome

   type of:

   quality

   an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone
2. noun

   extreme dangerousness
   type of:

   dangerousness

   the quality of not being safe