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Affected with caries; decaying; as, a carious tooth.

nother; held by courtesy; liable to be changed or lost at the pleasure of another; as, precarious privileges. Addison.

Thin, dry, membranous, and not green. Gray.

Of or pertaining to a vicar, substitute, or deputy; deputed; delegated; as, vicarious power or authority.

In a vicarious manner.

To separate and come off in scales or laminæ, as pieces of carious bone or of bark.

Triosteum (T. perfoliatum); -- called also feverwort amd horse gentian. -- Fever sore, a carious ulcer or necrosis. Miner.

Not solid or stable; insecure; precarious. He who fixes on false principles treads or infirm ground. South.

exposed to danger or loss. Bp. Hurg. The trade with Egypt was exceedingly insecure and precarious. Mickle.

t of stability, firmness, or steadiness; liability to give way or to fail; insecurity; precariousness; as, the instability of a building.

The thin and scarious projection from the upper end of the sheath of leaf of grass.

Subject to contention; disputable; controvertible; debatable; doubtful; precarious. Shak. No fences, parted fields, nor marks, nor bounds, Distinguished acres of litigious grounds. Dryden.

To make morbid, carious, or gangrenous; as, to putrefy an ulcer or wound.

Especially, the office, jurisdiction, or dominion of a regent or vicarious ruler, or of a body of regents; deputed or vicarious government. Sir W. Temple.

Exercising vicarious authority. Milton. Queen regent. See under Queen, n.

In a representative manner; vicariously.

a. & n. from Scalp. Scalping iron (Surg.), an instrument used in scraping foul and carious bones; a raspatory. -- Scalping knife, a knife used by north American Indians in scalping.

ity of Christ, the personality of the Devil, the native and total depravity of man, the vicarious atonement, and the eternity of future punishment. His theory was, that Christ was a man divinely commissioned, who had no existence before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary; that human sin was the imitation of Adam's sin…

The doctrine that Christ suffered vicariously, being substituted for the sinner, and that his sufferings were expiatory.

Manner of holding, in general; as, in absolute governments, men hold their rights by a precarious tenure. All that seems thine own, Held by the tenure of his will alone. Cowper. Tenure by fee alms. (Law) See Frankalmoigne.