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/prˈɛʃəs/ Listen

adjective

Precious adj.

Of great price; costly; as, a precious stone. "The precious bane."

Of great value or worth; very valuable; highly esteemed; dear; beloved; as, precious recollections. "She is more precious than rules." "Many things which are most precious are neglected only because the value of them lieth hid." Note: Also used ironically; as, a precious rascal.

Particular; fastidious; overnice; overrefined. Cf. Precieuse, Preciosity. "Lest that precious folk be with me wroth." "Elaborate embroidery of precious language."

Precious metals, the uncommon and highly valuable metals, esp. gold and silver.

Precious stones, gems; jewels.

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Etymology of 'Precious'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Precious" Quotes from Famous Books

... into a fluster. At the kitchens he had lost his head, and when his turn came—he had had to wait—he had yielded his place to those behind, saying that he didn't matter. And he had wasted more precious time buying bananas, though he knew that the Pembrokes were not partial to fruit. Amid much tardy and chaotic hospitality the meal got under way. All the spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs. Aberdeen's virtues were not practical. The fish seemed never to have been alive, the meat had no kick, ...

— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... who hid him in a place with her, and he abode, eating and drinking and cricketing, night and day. Her father heard of this and would have killed her; but she took the alarm and disguising herself in a [male] slave's habit, loaded a mule with gold and jewels and precious stuffs past count; then, taking horse with the ape, fled to Cairo, where she took up her abode in one of the houses ...

— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... saw all around him on the ship huge masses of the material most precious to him in the world, it was as if an American in Yucatan saw in a native hut heaps of gold and diamonds not valued by the savage. Suppose the savage left the American alone with ...

— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... world, in a manner to show that she had no occasion for that weapon to conquer all who saw her. The antiquated crown received new graces from her head; and the old tattered robe of St. Stephen became her as well as her own rich habit, if diamonds, pearls and all sorts of precious ...

— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... looked their sweetest. And didn't we cheer them! Well, I should say so. We stood up in the wagons, and swung our caps, and just whooped and hurrahed as long as those girls were in sight. We always treasured this incident as a bright, precious link in the chain of memory, for it was the last public manifestation, of this nature, of good-will and patriotism from girls and women that was given the regiment until we struck the soil of the State of Indiana, ...

— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

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