[ adj ] fraught with danger <adj.all> dangerous watersa parlous journey on stormy seas a perilous voyage across the Atlantic in a small boat the precarious life of an undersea diver dangerous surgery followed by a touch-and-go recovery
Perilous \Per"il*ous\, a. [OF. perillous, perilleus, F. p['e]rilleux, L. periculosus. See {Peril}.] [Written also {perillous}.] 1. Full of, attended with, or involving, peril; dangerous; hazardous; as, a perilous undertaking.
Infamous hills, and sandy, perilous wilds. --Milton.
2. Daring; reckless; dangerous. [Obs.] --Latimer.
For I am perilous with knife in hand. --Chaucer. ※ -- {Per"il*ous*ly}, adv. -- {Per"il*ous*ness}, n.
For those 33 months of sometimes perilous, sometimes comfortable, sometimes dreary service, I have been amply rewarded.
Several stock markets look rather perilous." As has been demonstrated in the past, a popular closed-end fund can keep trading at lofty premiums for a long time.
Do you mean to say that in these perilous times, when nobody knows what awful thing will happen next, you have no financial plan?
Predicting Japan's year-end trade results can be perilous, warned analysts.
'No doubt they are an entirely different entity from us - religiously, politically, you could even say nationally,' the senior official added, in a sign of how far government thinking has moved. The road to that separation is complex and perilous.
"One of the most perilous issues is whether labor and management can function under economic pressures of a high debt load, with little room to maneuver," says Mr. Blasi, the Rutgers professor.
Now, facing an even more perilous hostage crisis, Bush clearly is mindful of policy pitfalls he saw and criticized a decade ago.
The assault-weapons provision has a perilous future.
It blames the perilous state of the markets. However, John Bryan, the Duchess' financial adviser on the deal, must feel proud that this time he seems to be earning his keep.
In everything, there has been the matching of technical daring with emotional bravado: if it is not perched on the edge of the perilous, DV8 seems to say, then it is not worth doing.
The village's High Aldwin (Billy Barty) assigns Willow to take the baby to the good castle of Tir Asleen, and the perilous trek begins.
But Republicans believe the issue is perilous for the Democrats and, says White House pollster Wirthlin, is particularly "a mine field for Biden."
"Rambo III" also seems a perilous investment in view of its reported $63 million cost, including $20 million to Sylvester Stallone.
The disarray comes at a perilous time, just as many in the Baltic are urging a calm and united stand against the Kremlin's latest strong-arm tactics.
Even so, Bush said Friday, "I feel the burden of going to every end possible to try to find _ get the return of these Americans to their loved ones and find out the truth about Col. Higgins." Such a burden can be perilous to presidents.
But carrying 49 states appears to have given him a perilous illusion of infallibility, an illusion nourished by the sycophantic White House staff of his second term.
The pilots went on strike Saturday to protest what they called perilous working conditions that could cause a worse oil spill than the one off Huntington Beach on Wednesday that continued threatening the Southern California coast.
And then there are all the consequences of the accusation that AIDS comes from us." In desperation, Haitians sell what little they own for a perilous sea passage to the United States in leaky, overcrowded boats.
She got off to a perilous start.
But time is not one of them, success is far from certain, and the next 12 months look particularly perilous.
John J. Kieley III, skipper of the Reuben James, calls the "Worm Hole." As the convoy approached the next perilous stretch, the waters around the Abu Musa Island base for Iranian gunboats, two more tankers lined up behind the American group.
But, in the perilous transition to a post-apartheid economy, Anglo may also have the most to lose.
"The times are perilous," says John R. White, the honorary chairman of Landauer Associates, a New York real-estate consulting firm.
Keaton is represented in court by Jason Robards, who warns that her case is perilous.
It is an economic boon to the Midwest, it expands the business American farmers already are doing, and putting it in any doubt would be politically perilous.