How to Use parlous in a Sentence

parlous

adjective
  • He talked about the parlous state of the country.
  • The company is in a parlous financial situation.
  • In trouble is, for a kid, a parlous state, fraught with terror.
    — Kyle Smith, National Review, 9 Mar. 2021
  • Then there’s the parlous state of VW Group itself.
    — ArsTechnica, 24 Apr. 2026
  • So, given its parlous financial state, how will the company pay for it?
    — David Meyer, Fortune, 6 Oct. 2021
  • Though their governance remains parlous, at least these banks are no longer able to hide the extent of their problems.
    — The Economist, 19 Apr. 2018
  • The pension system is not on the brink of bankruptcy, even if its finances over the medium term look parlous.
    — Roger Cohen, BostonGlobe.com, 20 Mar. 2023
  • Its parlous finances have forced all but a handful of its greatest generation to leave.
    — Rory Smith, New York Times, 27 Oct. 2023
  • One day, while walking the dog, Joel weighed in on the parlous state of the federal minimum wage.
    — Belinda Luscombe, Time, 19 Feb. 2021
  • And most people draw a straight line between Biden’s policies and the parlous state of the economy.
    — Matthew Continetti, National Review, 15 Oct. 2022
  • This isn’t the first time that someone has tried to use AI as a shortcut, with parlous consequences.
    — Business Columnist, Los Angeles Times, 17 Mar. 2026
  • Yemen and Syria among them, given the parlous state of their economies and health systems, and with many people already homeless.
    — Rosalind Mathieson, Bloomberg.com, 8 May 2020
  • Declining revenues combined with soaring wage costs shifted the club’s finances into a parlous state.
    — Chris Weatherspoon, New York Times, 5 Feb. 2026
  • But what poses as unsentimental truth telling isn’t cynical enough about the parlous state of our privacy.
    — Jonathan Zittrain, The Atlantic, 7 Feb. 2020
  • The stakes are especially high this year given the parlous state of the agricultural economy.
    — Shruti Singh, Bloomberg.com, 5 Apr. 2018
  • Movie-theater operator Cineworld is still in a parlous position.
    — Stephen Wilmot, WSJ, 24 Sep. 2020
  • The parents have been forced, by uncertain but potentially parlous fetal test results, to abort their first pregnancy.
    — Claire Messud, Harpers Magazine, 5 Jan. 2021
  • For women of color, especially black women, the situation is even more parlous.
    — Parul Sehgal, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2018
  • The second reason why Starmer cannot ignore the parlous state of the union is the strong connection between power and prosperity.
    — Fintan O’Toole, Foreign Affairs, 5 July 2024
  • To the rest of the world, however, the state of Indian democracy looks increasingly parlous.
    — Sadanand Dhume, WSJ, 15 Apr. 2021
  • As with so many mid-tier clubs in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, Sampdoria’s finances are parlous.
    — New York Times, 16 July 2021
  • The vibe in front of the White House was its own uniquely 2024 mix—part dance party, part lecture on the parlous state of democracy.
    — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 31 Oct. 2024
  • Streaming’s cooler approach is badly timed for the indie film business, always a parlous proposition but especially now in the streaming chill.
    — David Bloom, Forbes, 23 Jan. 2023
  • Any explanation has to begin with the parlous state of the official opposition to the Conservatives now in power.
    — Jonathan Freedland, The New York Review of Books, 16 Aug. 2018
  • The parlous state of London’s prime central market, which began to decline in 2015, likely also played a role in this decision.
    — Ruth Bloomfield, WSJ, 26 Oct. 2017
  • On a visit to the Hasakah prison in 2019, The Washington Post found parlous conditions.
    — Washington Post, 23 Jan. 2022
  • Numerous commentaries from both the political left and right have expounded the parlous state of the Democratic Party.
    — Joel Kotkin, Orange County Register, 5 Mar. 2017
  • To complicate matters, at the film’s center the Dardennes place an amateur detective who doesn’t naturally belong to this parlous world.
    — Christian Lorentzen, New Republic, 4 Sep. 2017
  • What’s already been laid bare is that Chelsea is unviable in its current form without the largesse of its billionaire patron, a reflection of a sport whose parlous finances would sink just about any other industry.
    — David Hellier, Bloomberg.com, 11 Mar. 2022
  • The state of American diplomacy was parlous, as the Nazis established a firm and apparently permanent foothold in most of Western Europe.
    — Ronald C. Rosbottom, WSJ, 15 Oct. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'parlous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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