Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Precocious |
PrecociousAdjective1. Characterized by or characteristic of exceptionally early development or maturity (especially in mental aptitude); "a precocious child"; "a precocious achievement". 2. (botany) appearing or developing early; "precocious flowers appear before the leaves as in some species of magnolias". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "precocious" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1823. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Precocious means ripened by the sun before it has attained its full growth; premature; a development of mind or body beyond one's age. (Latin, præ coquo.) "Many precocious trees, and such as have their spring in winter, may be found."- Brown. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Antonym: retarded (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Discourtesy | Uncivil, ungracious, unceremonious; cool; pert, forward, obtrusive, impudent, rude, saucy, precocious. |
Earliness | Premature, precipitate, precocious; prevenient, anticipatory; rath. |
Insolence | Precocious, assuming, would-be, bumptious. |
Nonpreparation | Unhatched, unfledged, unnurtured, unlicked, untaught, uneducated, uncultivated,. untrained, untutored, undrilled, unexercised; deckle-edged; precocious, premature; undigested, indigested; unmellowed, unseasoned, unleavened. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Precocious |
| English words defined with "precocious": Precoce, precociously. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "precocious": Albright disease, Albright Syndrome, Albright-McCune-Sternberg syndrome, Albright's syndrome ♦ Nafarelin ♦ Triptorelin. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "precocious": Praecoces. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Lyrics | She's precocious, and she knows just ("Bette Davis Eyes"; performing artist: Kim Carnes) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | That's precocious Charlie McCarthy resting on Edgar Bergen's lap in this rehearsal scene from tonight's presentation of "Alice in Wonderland". Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | They are not callow like the young of most birds, but more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | For instance, sometimes young girls or boys, under age 9, experience a very early puberty, referred to as precocious puberty. (references) | |
The synthetic forms of GnRH (Deslorelin, Histerelin, and Lupron) which suppress LH and FSH, and are used to treat the common, gonadotropin-dependent form of precocious puberty, are not effective in most girls with McCune-Albright syndrome. (references) | ||
The precocious puberty in McCune-Albright girls is caused by estrogens which are secreted into the bloodstream by ovarian cysts, which enlarge, and then decrease in size over periods of weeks to days. The cysts can be visualized and measured by ultrasonography, in which sound waves are used to outline the dimensions of the ovaries. (references) | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Connie Francis | The Startime Kids. And they were the most precocious, talented group of young people that I've ever seen. And I was on that show four years, every single week for four years. And I learned a lot. I learned to do all kinds of music. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Precocious" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Precocious" is used about 104 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 100% | 104 | 31,955 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "precocious": precocious child ♦ precocious dementia ♦ precocious dentition. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
precocious puberty | 131 |
precocious | 45 |
precocious prodigious | 29 |
precocious prodigeous | 7 |
boy precocious puberty | 5 |
lupron precocious puberty | 5 |
central precocious puberty | 4 |
picture precocious puberty | 4 |
image precocious puberty | 3 |
precocious puberty treatment | 3 |
define precocious | 2 |
girl precocious | 2 |
cock precocious sucker | 2 |
photo precocious puberty | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "precocious"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | me zhvillim të parakohshëm, i hershëm (early, forehanded, forward, old time, original, primaeval, primeval, young). (various references) | |
Arabic | مبكر النضوج, مبكر (coming early, early, going early, morning, premature), قبل أوانه (premature), باكوري, بدري. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | ранозреен, който цъфти рано, който зрее рано. (various references) | |
Czech | předèasný (premature, untimely), předèasnì vyspìlý. (various references) | |
Danish | pubertas praecox (precocious puberty), for tidligt indtrædende pubertet (precocious puberty). (various references) | |
Dutch | pubertas praecox (precocious puberty), vroegtijdige puberteit (precocious puberty), nestvlieder (nidifugous bird, precocious bird). (various references) | |
Farsi | پیش رس (Premature, Unripe), نابهنگام (Immature, Inopportune, Malapropos, Premature, Unseasonable, Untimely), زودرس (Hasty, Unripe), باهوش (Bright, Clever, Ingenious, Intelligent, Keen, Sagacious, Shrewd, Smart, Spiffy, Spry, Swish, Understanding). (various references) | |
Finnish | pikkuvanha, varhaiskypsä. (various references) | |
French | précoce. (various references) | |
German | altklug (precociously), frühzeitig (early, in good time, premature, untimely). (various references) | |
Greek | πρόωροσ (early, premature, untimely), προώρωσ ανεπτυγμένοσ, προπετήσ. (various references) | |
Hebrew | מפותח בטרם עת, מבוכר (early, ripe). (various references) | |
Hungarian | koravén, korai (early, forward, premature, premised, untimely), koraérett (forward), korán érő (premature), idő előtt jelentkező. (various references) | |
Italian | precoce (early, forward, premature, previous). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 早熟 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | そうじゅく. (various references) | |
Manx | shenn-creeney, mogh-appee (forward, forward of plants), appee roish yn traa. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ecociouspray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | precoce (early, forward, premature, rath, rathe, untimely), temporão (forward, rath, rathe). (various references) | |
Romanian | prematur (abortive, early, forward, immature, premature, prematurely, previous, untimely), precoce (hasty). (various references) | |
Russian | скороспелый (forward, rareripe, ratheripe), рано развившийся, развитой (cultured, educated). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | pre vremena, rani (early, forward). (various references) | |
Spanish | precoz (early, forward, premature). (various references) | |
Swedish | brådmogen. (various references) | |
Turkish | vaktinden önce yetişmiş, erken gelişmiş (forward), bacaksız (dwarfish, legless, pint-size, pint-sized, short-legged), büyümüş de küçülmüş (forward). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | скоростиглий (early, forward), рано розвинений, передчасний (abortive, anticipatory, premature, previous, untimely). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | sớm ra hoa, sớm phát triển, sớm (early, premature). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | praecoquae, praecoquas, praecox. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "precocious": precociously, precociousness, precociousnesses. (additional references) | |
| |
"Precocious" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: percocious, precancerous, precessious, precisious, precociious, precocions, precocios, precociouse, precociuos, precocius, precocous, precocus, precoious, precoscious, precosious, precotious, prococious. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "precocious" (pronounced prikō"shus or prēkō"shus) |
| 4 | -ō" sh u s | atrocious, ferocious. |
| 3 | -sh u s | ambitious, anxious, audacious, auspicious, capacious, capricious, cautious, conscientious, conscious, contentious, delicious, efficacious, expeditious, facetious, factitious, fallacious, fictitious, flirtatious, fractious, gracious, hellacious, herbaceous, inauspicious, infectious, injudicious, judicious, loquacious, luscious, malicious, nauseous, noxious, nutritious, obnoxious, ostentatious, overambitious, pernicious, precious, predaceous, pretentious, propitious, pugnacious, rambunctious, rapacious, repetitious, salacious, sebaceous, seditious, semiprecious, spacious, specious, subconscious, superstitious, surreptitious, suspicious, tenacious, tendentious, unconscious, unpretentious, vexatious, vicious, vivacious, voracious. |
| 4 | -ō" sh u s | atrocious, ferocious. |
| 3 | -sh u s | ambitious, anxious, audacious, auspicious, capacious, capricious, cautious, conscientious, conscious, contentious, delicious, efficacious, expeditious, facetious, factitious, fallacious, fictitious, flirtatious, fractious, gracious, hellacious, herbaceous, inauspicious, infectious, injudicious, judicious, loquacious, luscious, malicious, nauseous, noxious, nutritious, obnoxious, ostentatious, overambitious, pernicious, precious, predaceous, pretentious, propitious, pugnacious, rambunctious, rapacious, repetitious, salacious, sebaceous, seditious, semiprecious, spacious, specious, subconscious, superstitious, surreptitious, suspicious, tenacious, tendentious, unconscious, unpretentious, vexatious, vicious, vivacious, voracious. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-c-e-i-o-o-p-r-s-u" | |
-1 letter: occupiers. | |
-2 letters: occupier, occupies, precious. | |
-3 letters: ciceros, coopers, copiers, copious, croupes, piceous, recoups, scooper, sirocco, soupier. | |
-4 letters: cercis, cercus, cerous, cicero, circus, cooers, cooper, copers, copier, copies, corpse, corpus, cosier, coupes, course, cripes, crocus, croupe, croups, crouse, cruces, cruise, cupric, curies, curios, occurs, poiser, pooris, porose, porous, poseur, precis, prices, recoup, roscoe, scroop, soccer. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-c-e-i-o-o-p-r-s-u" | |
+2 letters: precociously, preconscious. | |
+3 letters: reoccupations. | |
+4 letters: hyperconscious, microcomputers, precociousness, preconsciouses, preconsciously, preoccupations, psychoneurotic. | |
+5 letters: psychoneurotics, ultramicroscope. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Quotations: Fiction 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Quotations: Spoken | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
