ETYMOLOGY
from Latin periculosus (dangerous, full of danger), from periculum (danger, peril) + –osus (-ous)
EXAMPLE
“… That Saturn the enemy of life, comes almost every seventh year, unto the quadrate or malevolent place; that as the Moon about every seventh day arriveth unto a contrary sign, so Saturn, which remaineth about as many years, as the Moon doth daies in one sign, and holdeth the same consideration in years as the Moon in daies; doth cause these periculous periods. Which together with other Planets, and profection of the Horoscope, unto the seventh house, or opposite signs every seventh year; oppresseth living natures, and causeth observable mutations, in the state of sublunary things. …”
From: Pseudodoxia Epidemica,
Or, Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths.
By Thomas Brown, 1650
Chapter XII Of the great Climacterical year, that is, Sixty three.
PRONUNCIATION
puh-RICK-yuh-luhss
Lexicophilia 