Precious

How to spell precious

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce precious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does precious mean?

1. adjectiveOf great value, or treasured and dearly loved.
2. adjectiveAffectedly dainty or over-refined in manner, style, or detail.

Precious in a sentence

• The ring was her most precious possession.

• The review mocked the novel's precious prose and fussy vocabulary.

• Miners spent decades searching the hills for precious metals.

• He had a precious way of arranging every item on his desk.

Where does precious come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin pretiosus, meaning 'of great value' or 'costly', which was built on the noun pretium, meaning 'price' or 'worth'. The same pretium also underlies the modern words 'price', 'prize', and 'appreciate', so the family connection is all about what something is worth. English took the word in the 1200s through Old French precios, and the spelling kept that French-Latin shape, which is why the sound 'shus' is written with the deceptive '-cious' rather than a plain 's'. Over time it broadened from describing literal treasures, such as precious metals and gemstones, to describing anything dearly loved, and it even picked up a slightly mocking sense for something or someone affectedly dainty. The trap for writers is purely in the ending: the second syllable is an unstressed schwa and the 'ci' spells the 'sh' sound, so '-cious' is easy to mangle.

How the word is built

• preci- (from Latin pretium: price, value)
• -ous (full of, characterised by)