precious

adj

Etymology: 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.

1. 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.”

   “People are a good thing, the most precious resource in a rich economy, so the progressive-minded feel. Only misanthropists disagree or the dottier Malthusians who send green-ink tweets deploring any state assistance for child-rearing.”

2. Regarded with love or tenderness.

   “The way my partner looks at me is just so precious.”

3. Treated with too much reverence.

   “He spent hours painting the eyes of the portrait, which his fellow artists regarded as a bit precious.”

4. Excessively complicated.
5. Extremely protective or strict (about something).

   “Writers are often very precious about their work.”

   “Pro chefs can be very precious about their kit. Watch a bartender trying to borrow a simple, cheap fruit-knife from the kitchen and you'll see what I mean.”

6. Blasted; damned.

   “It’s all owing to your precious caution that they got hold of it. If you had let me burn it, and taken my word that it was gone, it would have been a heap of ashes behind the fire, instead of being whole and sound, inside of my great-coat.”

7. Contrived to be cute or charming.

   “In the abstract, Stuhlbarg’s twinkly-eyed sidekick suggests Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 by way of late-period Robin Williams with an alien twist, but Stuhlbarg makes a character that easily could have come across as precious into a surprisingly palatable, even charming man.”

8. Thorough; utter.

   “a precious rascal”

adv

Etymology: 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.

1. Very; an intensifier.

   “There is precious little we can do.”

   “precious few pictures of him exist”

name

1. A surname transferred from the nickname, originating as a male or female nickname.
2. A female given name from English.

   “She and Mma Ramotswe were fortunate, with their reasonably straightforward names of Grace and Precious respectively; she had contemporaries who were not so fortunate and had been saddled by their parents with names that were frankly ridiculous.”

noun

Etymology: 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.

1. Someone (or something) who is loved; a darling.

   ““It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?””

   “She sat down with the dogs in her lap. "I won't neglect you for any one, will I, my preciouses?"”