What does precious mean?
Word: Precious
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Precious means worth a lot of money, or very dear to you because you love it, like an old photo of your grandparents.
Synonyms: valuable, priceless, dear
Antonyms: cheap
How do you spell precious?
Syllables: pre - cious
Tricky part: The 'shus' sound at the end is spelt with a c and the letters i, o, u, then s. Children often write it the way it sounds.
Watch out for: precius, presious, preshus
Memory tip: Hide 'I owe U' in the ending: c-i-o-u-s. You owe a big thank you for a precious gift.
Precious in a sentence
Example 1: Amma keeps her precious gold bangles in a locked box.
Example 2: Every drop of rain is precious to a farmer in a dry year.
Example 3: That old teddy bear is precious to my little sister.
Fun Fact
Jewellers have long called diamond, ruby, sapphire and emerald the precious stones; most other gems are grouped as semi-precious.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word:
precious
a) costly
b) treasured
c) worthless
d) special
Show answer
c) worthless. Costly, special and treasured all lean the same way as precious, so worthless is the opposite.
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the correctly spelt word:
a) precious
b) tresure
c) diamand
d) valuble
Show answer
a) precious. Valuable keeps an a after the u, diamond ends in -ond, and treasure needs ea.
Mingle-Mangle
Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:
cupsoire
a) precious
b) rpecious
c) percious
d) repcious
Show answer
a) precious. Percious, repcious and rpecious keep the cious ending but muddle the first three letters.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
My cousin keeps her pricious seashells in a glass jar.
a) glass
b) cousin
c) seashells
d) pricious
Show answer
d) pricious. The first vowel of precious is e, not i.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Water is precious in a desert because it is ____.
a) hard to find
b) always very cold
c) heavy to carry
d) too salty to drink
Show answer
a) hard to find
2. Gold, silver and platinum are known as precious ____.
a) rocks
b) stones
c) coins
d) metals
Show answer
d) metals
