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Parlous means in a very bad or dangerous condition. If a company’s money situation is parlous, it may not last. If the peace is parlous, it could break at any moment. It is an old, slightly literary word. Ordinary people today almost always say dangerous, in a bad way, or perilous. You will still meet parlous in newspapers that like a fancy tone, and in older books. Though actually, it is not a different idea from perilous: speakers of Middle English squeezed perilous down into parlous. They are twins — one worn shorter, and now the rarer of the two.
岌岌可危的、險惡的（書面、略古；和 perilous 是同一詞的縮音雙生）
組成A shortened form of perilous. That word came from Old French perilleus / perillous, from Latin perīculōsus “full of danger,” from perīculum “danger, risk” + -ōsus “full of.” Doublet of perilous.
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
parlousadj/ˈpɑːləs/
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Attended with peril; dangerous, risky.
- The situation became parlous when the weather made resupply impossible.
- [B]ables and comedies are parlous fellowes to decipher, and diſcourage men (that is the point) with their wittie flowtes and learned jerkes, enough to laſh any man out of countenance.
- 2
Appalling, dire, terrible.
- in a parlous state
- All whiche offences and mysdemenors abovesaid have bene commytted to the grete hurte and undoyng of your orator, and the right evill and parlous example, [etc.]; […]
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obsoleteraredialectalDangerously clever or cunning; also, remarkably good or unusual.
- A parlous Boy: go too, you are too ſhrew'd.
- [O]h their parlous fellows, they will ſearch more with their wits than a Cunſtable with all his officers.
parlousadv/ˈpɑːləs/
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archaicExtremely, very.
- [L]ast week I had a distinctly unpleasant experience, and came parlous near qualifying as a beachcomber. [...] I cast round, trying one or two charming little hotels within reasonable radius, only to find the "house full" boards up everywhere.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。