Parlous, Perilous...

[David Robson]

Late ME contraction of perilous. Archaic, humorous.

On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 10:57 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Let's call the whole thing off?
>
> A NYT editorial [
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/world/asia/chinese-annoyance-with-north-korea-bubbles-to-the-surface.html
> ] this weekend used this phrase:
>
> "....The parlous state of the relationship between North Korea and China
> was on display again Wednesday when Pyongyang commemorated the third
> anniversary of the death of Kim Jong-il, the father of the current leader,
> Kim Jong-un, and failed to invite a senior Chinese official."
>
> I'm not familiar with "parlous."  Is it reall just the same word,
> different spelling, as "perilous?"
> David Morris
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20141222/1ee160db/attachment.html>