precision
Americannoun
-
the state or quality of being precise.
-
accuracy; exactness.
to arrive at an estimate with precision.
- Synonyms:
- rigor
-
mechanical or scientific exactness.
a lens ground with precision.
-
punctiliousness; strictness.
precision in one's business dealings.
-
Mathematics. the degree to which the correctness of a quantity is expressed.
-
Chemistry, Physics. the extent to which a given set of measurements of the same sample agree with their mean.
adjective
noun
-
the quality of being precise; accuracy
-
(modifier) characterized by or having a high degree of exactness
precision grinding
a precision instrument
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of precision
First recorded in 1630–40; from Latin praecīsiōn-, stem of praecīsiō “cutoff”; equivalent to precise + -ion
Explanation
Use the noun precision to describe something that's exact, such as the work of a carpenter who's made 100 identical pieces of railing for a grand staircase. Precision is similar to perfection in that both words suggest that something could not possibly be better. However, perfection describes something that's flawless, such as a beautiful sunset. Precision, on the other hand, is more about accuracy, like computing the exact second that the perfect sunset will occur.
Vocabulary lists containing precision
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List 5
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The Scientific Method
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
This shift is driving investment in capacity and skill-building into precision machining and tooling, they say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
With the Los Tropicanos backing band behind him, Iggy’s energy was transferred through the players who bolstered his catalog of Detroit-bred proto punk with tight precision and the right amount of stumbling sleaziness.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Her husband, a shift worker himself, illustrates the problem with quiet precision.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
Even with those limitations, the results point toward a developing field known as precision nutrition.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 18, 2026
Father would stand at his vantage point on the platform almost on tiptoe with the joy of precision, holding his pocket watch and a pad and pencil.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
And yet an EUV alone is a nearly miraculous human achievement, capable of working at scales and precisions that are difficult to fathom.
From New York Times ● Jul. 12, 2023
“We can create these models that basically let us know the time of arrival to precisions that rival atomic clocks,” says Thankful Cromartie, an astrophysicist at Cornell University and a member of NANOGrav.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 28, 2023
It’s in these precisions that the historical and sociological force of her work registers.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 6, 2023
They will have to decide which qubits in the computer to use and how to deal with ranges of operational fidelities and low-level precisions that are foreign to most modern programmers.
From Nature ● Sep. 12, 2017
They catch the idea readily and practice their teachers' precisions and pruderies upon the family.
From Atlantic Classics, Second Series by Addams, Jane
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.