parlous

Etymology

This word comes from Middle English parles, parlous, perlous, and other forms, a contraction of perilous ("dangerous; dreadful, terrible; morally corrupt, sinful, wicked; inauspicious, unlucky") — making it a doublet of perilous — from Old French perilleus, perillos, perillous, perilluse, perilleuse, perilleux ("very dangerous, perilous") (modern French périlleux), from Latin perīculōsus ("dangerous, hazardous, perilous"), from perīculum ("danger, hazard, peril, risk") (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *per- ("to go through, carry forth, try")), plus -ōsus, a suffix meaning 'full of, prone to' used to form adjectives.