precious.
Of high value or worth.
Meaning & usage
Of high value or worth.
The crown had many precious gemstones. This building work needs site access, and tell the city council that I don't care about a few lorry tyre ruts across their precious grass verge.
Regarded with love or tenderness.
The way my partner looks at me is just so precious.
Treated with too much reverence.
He spent hours painting the eyes of the portrait, which his fellow artists regarded as a bit precious.
Excessively complicated.
Extremely protective or strict (about something).
Writers are often very precious about their work.
Blasted; damned.
Contrived to be cute or charming.
Thorough; utter.
a precious rascal
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Middle English precious, borrowed from Old French precios (“valuable, costly, precious, beloved, also affected, finical”), from Latin pretiōsus (“of great value, costly, dear, precious”), from pretium (“value, price”); see price.
Someone (or something) who is loved; a darling.
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Middle English precious, borrowed from Old French precios (“valuable, costly, precious, beloved, also affected, finical”), from Latin pretiōsus (“of great value, costly, dear, precious”), from pretium (“value, price”); see price.
Very; an intensifier.
There is precious little we can do.
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Middle English precious, borrowed from Old French precios (“valuable, costly, precious, beloved, also affected, finical”), from Latin pretiōsus (“of great value, costly, dear, precious”), from pretium (“value, price”); see price.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.