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precipitous
in a sentence

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  • "What is commonly thought of by the layman as the Angel of Death, when discussed at all with the patient's family, should be presented to them as a small series of strokes compounding an already precipitous state of decline."†   (source)
  • She made a sudden and unsignaled left turn, pulling onto a road that dropped precipitously down a hill with fields on either side, and she gripped the steering wheel tight as we accelerated, and she waited until the last possible moment to brake, just before we reached the bottom of the hill.†   (source)
  • Catelyn climbed stiffly from the shadows and looked at the path ahead; twenty feet long and close to three feet wide, but with a precipitous drop to either side.†   (source)
  • In late evening he arrived at the edge of a precipitous ravine.†   (source)
  • He treats us to "a singularly dreary tract of country," to "a few rank sedges" and "white trunks of decayed trees," to "the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn," so that we're ready for the "bleak walls" of the house with its "vacant eye-like windows" and its "barely perceptible fissure" zigzagging its way down the wall right down to "the sullen waters of the tarn."†   (source)
  • At the top of the mountain, the road dropped precipitously and swung back and forth until it bottomed out into a long, narrow valley.†   (source)
  • Missy, seemingly satisfied with her daddy's answers, never again raised the issue of the princess, even when one of their day hikes took them by some precipitous cliffs.†   (source)
  • Poor Marley's status dropped precipitously from second fiddle to not even in the orchestra.†   (source)
  • The mountains were more precipitous now than ever before.†   (source)
  • Business began to suffer, at first gradually, then precipitously.†   (source)
  • Three hundred feet the down rose vertically in a stretch of no more than six hundred—a precipitous wall, from the thin belt of trees at the foot to the ridge where the steep flattened out.†   (source)
  • Their excitement was not his; he felt as if he'd moved too precipitously.†   (source)
  • From a high in 1990, the crime rate went into precipitous decline.†   (source)
  • What does it mean that lynchings were relatively rare and that they fell precipitously over time, even in the face of a boom in Klan membership?†   (source)
  • The shallow groove carved by the stream ended at the top of a cliff that was the precipitous edge of the mountain.†   (source)
  • If Ramius were indeed a traitor, then Padorin stood condemned for gross misjudgment, but if Ramius had been an unknowing pawn, then Padorin along with Gorshkov had been duped into precipitous action.†   (source)
  • The drop on the other side was just as precipitous as the one we'd climbed.†   (source)
  • In 1909, the duke of Abruzzi, one of the greatest climbers of his day, and perhaps his era's most discerning connoisseur of precipitous landscapes, led an Italian expedition up the Baltoro for an unsuccessful attempt at K2.†   (source)
  • Delivery men fled precipitously whenever he stuck his head out into the street, and once he caused a riot among the women who were lined up waiting to buy milk, startling the dray horse who took off like a shot, scattering milk pails every which way on the pavement.†   (source)
  • So precipitous was his move that he caught her off guard.†   (source)
  • "There was a moment when Marion's blood pressure dropped precipitously.†   (source)
  • One of their officers, Captain Andreas Wiederhold, would describe attacking up "this almost inaccessible rock," and yet, "every obstacle was swept aside …. the precipitous rocks scaled."†   (source)
  • Around the harbour rose steep hills dotted with houses and old colonial buildings, with Fort Rupert perched all the way out on the tip of a precipitous cliff.†   (source)
  • His stomach turned over as if he were aboard a roller coaster, plunging along a precipitous length of track.†   (source)
  • I realize, probably too late, that I wish to leave something of myself, a small service to Bedley Run, and not simply a respectable headstone, but after seeing the generic, forlorn closedness of the store, I feel precipitously insubstantial behind the wheel, like an apparition who has visited too long.†   (source)
  • IN TEN days the pupil had begun to outdistance the teacher and was leading the most difficult and precipitous pitches, the ones that had to be climbed artificially because they offered not a single hold.†   (source)
  • She swam out farther and paused where the floor dropped precipitously into deepest blue.†   (source)
  • Had he not precipitously withdrawn American troops from Iraq, they said, ISIS would never have taken root in neighboring Syria.†   (source)
  • Another part that bothered me, though, was the strange quality of the event—the jolly athletic amour so obviously and exquisitely enjoyed, yet followed by the precipitous slide into rage, weeping and discontent.†   (source)
  • The woods ran to the river in deep gullies, which dropped precipitously and cut across the road.†   (source)
  • Fixed in its pure white profile it stood in the precipitous moment, a plumicorn on its head, its breeding dress extended in rays, eating steadily the little water creatures.†   (source)
  • He stayed there for ten days, until high winds forced him to seek refuge in a cave midway up the precipitous face of the bluff, where he remained for another ten days.   (source)
    precipitous = steep
  • Slopes rose precipitously from the water's edge, bearded in a gloom of hemlock and cedar and devil's club.   (source)
    precipitously = steeply
  • Shortly after their break, the path became more precipitous and the pace slowed even more.†   (source)
  • Eragon felt his strength ebb precipitously.†   (source)
  • "I'm sorry," Mercy said, clearly sensing the precipitous downward spiral of his mood.†   (source)
  • At around 20,000 feet, where the glacier emerged from the lower end of the Cum, it pitched abruptly over a precipitous dro .†   (source)
  • Situated 11,300 feet above sea level, Namche occupies a huge, tilting bowl proportioned like a giant satellite television dish, midway up a precipitous Mountainside.†   (source)
  • Thus on the morning of our summit bid, the only ropes strung along the precipitous serrations of the upper Southeast Ridge were a few ancient, tattered remnants from past expeditions that emerged sporadically from the ice.†   (source)
  • Pressing my body against a shale outcrop, trying to escape the subzero breeze now blowing from the west, I stared down the precipitous slope and attempted to identify the climbers inching toward us in the moonlight.†   (source)
  • He followed Hollis's pink truck down a newly paved side street that sloped up precipitously, causing the Hearse's worn-out engine to rev for its very life.†   (source)
  • The hill offered commanding views, and the slopes were precipitous to the north and west and only slightly more gentle to the east.†   (source)
  • Drawing to a stop at the edge of the precipitous mound of scree that ringed Helgrind, the priests gathered on either side of a rustcolored boulder with a polished top.†   (source)
  • He rose from the bed and followed her into the vestibule, where they descended through the trapdoor and down the precipitous staircase that wound around the rough tree trunk.†   (source)
  • There it teetered on the precipitous crest of a foam-capped swell before pitching forward and racing down the face of the wave into the black trough below.†   (source)
  • The currents, tumblings, and precipitous falls within gave the staid black and gray masses a sense of movement.†   (source)
  • Holding his breath, he hurried past the dead Lethrblaka and went to the edge of the vast cave, where he gazed down the precipitous side of Helgrind at the hills far below.†   (source)
  • DAWN OF the third day found them on a hilltop, looking across a precipitous valley cluttered with rocky ledges and banks of laurel and juniper.†   (source)
  • THE UNIT of Alpini to which Alessandro had been assigned was camped far to the north, under the precipitous walls of the Cima Blanca.†   (source)
  • She had not seen him since the day when she had alighted from his carriage so precipitously at Five Points.†   (source)
  • The channel wound between precipitous banks, and slanting from one wall to the other across the valley ran a streak of green-the river and its fields.†   (source)
  • They carried him down the ladder and through the cloister and acrossthe rock to the most precipitous cliff—the one over which the Acoma women flung broken pots and such refuse as the turkeys would not eat.†   (source)
  • I recognise the characteristic outline of the Dolbenberg, a jagged comb, springing up precipitously from the limits of the forests.†   (source)
  • In the event, that Easter vacation formed a short stretch of level road in the precipitous descent of which Jasper warned me.†   (source)
  • Within all was significant and tense with fate, and while, love-lost and tender, I was busied with the little sweet appealing things of love and sank apparently without a care in the caress of happiness, I was conscious all the while in my heart how my fate raced on at breakneck speed, racing and chasing like a frightened horse, straight for the precipitous abyss, spurred on by dread and longing to the consummation of death.†   (source)
  • I realised, too, that the car could climb no more, we had reached the summit, and below us stretched the way that we had come, precipitous and hollow.†   (source)
  • Swearing, sweating men hauled the heavy guns up the precipitous slopes, for mules could not climb the hillsides.†   (source)
  • Our rooms were on the floor above, reached by a precipitous marble staircase; they were shuttered against the afternoon sun; the butler threw them open and we looked out on the grand canal; the beds had mosquito nets.†   (source)
  • He descended into a ravine which became precipitous.†   (source)
  • Here debauched a deep gorge, with precipitous, volcanic walls which no man could scale.†   (source)
  • Where the river swung in against precipitous bluffs, he climbed the high mountains behind.†   (source)
  • It began to widen, with descents less precipitous.†   (source)
  • Silver spruces bordered the base of a precipitous wall that rose loftily.†   (source)
  • Within a week after the receipt of this letter their little household fell precipitously to pieces.†   (source)
  • This side of the river bank was more wooded and less precipitous than the other.†   (source)
  • The latter were precipitous, especially on the side of the plain, and chiefly in forest.†   (source)
  • But they could not get a good view of it, because the precipitous bastion curved at the top, so that the base was not easily seen and the car disappeared as it came nearer.†   (source)
  • The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked with game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt was not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it afforded, but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner's territorial possessions.†   (source)
  • A little way up the hill, for instance, was a great heap of granite, bound together by masses of aluminium, a vast labyrinth of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps, amidst which were thick heaps of very beautiful pagoda-like plants—nettles possibly—but wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves, and incapable of stinging.†   (source)
  • Together we made our way down the precipitous slope and approached the body, black and clear against the silvered stones.†   (source)
  • Whoever has heard the freshet-wave of a torrent suddenly swelled by pouring showers in tropical mountains, showers not shared by the plain; whoever has heard the first muffled murmur of its sloping advance through precipitous woods, may form some conception of the sound now heard.†   (source)
  • A barrier to further progress, in shape of a precipitous rocky bluff, rose sheer from the willow brake.†   (source)
  • He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality.†   (source)
  • Madeline, prepared by that warning whistle, tried to fortify herself for a new and unexpected situation; but as she espied an unfamiliar company of horsemen rapidly riding down a hollow leading from the foothills she felt the return of fears gripping at her like cold hands, and she fled precipitously into the house.†   (source)
  • I had fallen into a precipitous ravine, rocky and thorny, full of a hazy mist which drifted about me in wisps, and with a narrow streamlet from which this mist came meandering down the centre.†   (source)
  • …of Italy, lo! in place of those dreams of tempests, by which I had been entirely possessed, not wishing to see anything but waves dashing in from all sides, mounting always higher, upon the wildest of coasts, beside churches as rugged and precipitous as cliffs, in whose towers the sea-birds would be wailing; suddenly, effacing them, taking away all their charm, excluding them because they were its opposite and could only have weakened its effect, was substituted in me the converse…†   (source)
  • She peeped down the great rugged cliffs—the descent would be easy enough, as they were not precipitous, and the great boulders afforded plenty of foothold.†   (source)
  • Climbing the precipitous ascent, he laughed and chattered, but she was silent, seeming to brood over something.†   (source)
  • Venters had a moment's notice of the rock, which was of the same smoothness and hardness as the slope below, before his gaze went irresistibly upward to the precipitous walls of this wide ladder of granite.†   (source)
  • Carley looked down into the void, at the sailing birds, at the precipitous slopes, and the dwarf spruces and the weathered old yellow cliffs.†   (source)
  • At the end of the avenue the road, by an easy grade, descended into a lowland, where, on the right hand, there was a precipitous facing of gray rock, and on the left an open meadow of vernal freshness.†   (source)
  • Still he went on, for his mind was as utterly narrowed into that precipitous crevice of play as if he had been the most ignorant lounger there.†   (source)
  • When thou hast crossed the ford, thou wilt take care of thy footing up the left bank, as it is somewhat precipitous; and the path, which hangs over the river, has lately, as I learn, (for I seldom leave the duties of my chapel,) given way in sundry places.†   (source)
  • It terminated in bold and precipitous cliffs, which extended into the deep water, and rose abruptly so as to form an inaccessible wall of rock and crag.†   (source)
  • At a terrific height directly above us, and upon the very verge of the precipitous descent, hovered a gigantic ship of, perhaps, four thousand tons.†   (source)
  • They inquired at several little area gates, where a dejected youth stood spiking his chin on the summit of a precipitous little shoot of wooden steps, but could gain no information.†   (source)
  • The one in question was high and precipitous; its top flattened, as usual; but with one of its sides more than ordinarily irregular.†   (source)
  • The ascent is precipitous, but the path is cut into continual and short windings, which enable you to surmount the perpendicularity of the mountain.†   (source)
  • …a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and…†   (source)
  • The land was tolerably level for a few hundred feet, and then it rose precipitously in a mountainside.†   (source)
  • The effect was as when the light, vapory clouds, with their soft coloring, suddenly vanish from the stony brow of a precipitous mountain, and leave there the frown which you at once feel to be eternal.†   (source)
  • On this course nine obstacles had been arranged: the stream, a big and solid barrier five feet high, just before the pavilion, a dry ditch, a ditch full of water, a precipitous slope, an Irish barricade (one of the most difficult obstacles, consisting of a mound fenced with brushwood, beyond which was a ditch out of sight for the horses, so that the horse had to clear both obstacles or might be killed); then two more ditches filled with water, and one dry one; and the end of the race…†   (source)
  • Though protected from any great danger of observation by the precipitous banks, and the thick shrubbery which skirted the stream, no precaution known to an Indian attack was neglected.†   (source)
  • A flight of steps, so deep and narrow as to be almost precipitous, leads up to a low portal in the south side of the tower, by which the adventurous antiquary may still, or at least could a few years since, gain access to a small stair within the thickness of the main wall of the tower, which leads up to the third story of the building,—the two lower being dungeons or vaults, which neither receive air nor light, save by a square hole in the third story, with which they seem to have…†   (source)
  • On the western border of the plain, the mountains, though equally high, were less precipitous, and as they receded opened into irregular valleys and glens, or were formed into terraces and hollows that admitted of cultivation.†   (source)
  • The air, for wind it could scarce be called, was still light, it is true, but it had increased a little in the course of the night, and as the canoes were feathers on the water, they had drifted twice the expected distance; and, what was still more dangerous, had approached so near the base of the mountain that here rose precipitously from the eastern shore, as to render the carols of the birds plainly audible.†   (source)
  • I was glad to see this, however, for I now knew that my wife and children were on a comparatively inaccessible spot, the other side of the tent being protected by steep and precipitous cliffs.†   (source)
  • She continued her course along the precipitous sides of the river, when suddenly her foot slipped, and she fell into the rapid stream.†   (source)
  • Yet it was more than an hour and a half before I got clear of the rocks, cliffs, and shoals to which they resorted, and neared a high and precipitous cape, running far out to sea.†   (source)
  • Aided by Duncan and the younger Mohican, the two latter descended the precipitous sides of that hill which they had so lately ascended under so very different auspices, and whose summit had so nearly proved the scene of their massacre.†   (source)
  • As he kept his lips compressed, with a most inveterate determination, the air was compelled to pass through his nostrils, and he rather snorted than breathed, and in such a manner that nothing but the excessive agitation of the sheriff could at all justify his precipitous orders.†   (source)
  • We halted on the outskirts of a little wood behind which, to the right, rose the precipitous and frowning cliffs of the mountain gorge, while to the left flowed the torrent, leaving between it and the rocks the narrow pass we called the Gap, and passing onward to mingle its waters with the sea.†   (source)
  • The mountain fell off precipitously in front of the terrace, and the approach by its sides, under the ridge of the rocks, was difficult and a little dangerous.†   (source)
  • Emerging beyond the thicket we found ourselves on firm ground, near the precipitous wall of rock, and perceived a clear sparkling brook flowing from an opening, which proved to be a cave or grotto of considerable size.†   (source)
  • And I could not take a horse down the precipitous course of the burn.†   (source)
  • I took it, deciding after one look down the precipitous decline that in spite of his age, he was likely steadier on his pins than I was.†   (source)
  • Because in middle youth he had often sat observing through a rondel of bossed glass of a multicoloured pane the spectacle offered with continual changes of the thoroughfare without, pedestrians, quadrupeds, velocipedes, vehicles, passing slowly, quickly, evenly, round and round and round the rim of a round and round precipitous globe.†   (source)
  • In them these skies and airs, these mountain peaks, Shasta, Nevadas, These huge precipitous cliffs, this amplitude, these valleys, far Yosemite, To be in them absorb'd, assimilated.†   (source)
  • …left slope of the Apennine, which, the first from Monte Veso toward the east, has its proper course,—which is called Acquacheta up above, before it sinks valleyward into its low bed, and at Forli no longer has that name,[1] —reverberates from the alp in falling with a single leap there above San Benedetto, where there ought to be shelter for a thousand;[2] thus down from a precipitous bank we found that dark-tinted water resounding, so that in short while it would have hurt the ears.†   (source)
  • 1) Of insolence is bred The tyrant; insolence full blown, With empty riches surfeited, Scales the precipitous height and grasps the throne.†   (source)
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