preciousness
precious
adverb
 informaluk /ˈpreʃ.əs/ us /ˈpreʃ.əs/
very: 很，非常
Lots of people will start, but precious few will finish.许多人将开始去做，但极少数能完成。
Be careful - you'll be precious little help if you come back injured.小心——如果你受了伤回来就帮不上什么忙了。

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Linguistics: very & extreme
abjectly
absolutely
abundantly
abundantly clear
beyond
biblical
downright
extraordinarily
extremely
infinitely
particularly
richly
stupefyingly
super
super-duper
super-spectacular
superabundantly
totally
violently
whatever

precious | American Dictionary

precious
adjective
us/ˈpreʃ·əs/

preciousadjective (VALUABLE)

of very great value or worth:
precious memories
Children are our most precious resource.
Precious metals are gold, silver, and platinum.
A precious stone is a jewel:
Diamonds and rubies are precious stones.
precious
adverb
 infmlus/ˈpreʃ·əs/

preciousadverb (VERY)

very:
He earns precious little money.

Examples of precious

precious
The continuous decline in precious-metal content was the safety valve that made possible the stability of prices expressed in trade coins.
Precious metal coinages and the mass disbursements of imported wine, attested in a few regions archaeologically, fit comfortably into an analysis of this kind.
Look at it this way: in some moods, or in some contexts, one might think that human beings are precious.
One has taken care to use those that are most rare and most precious in those places closest to the king's person.
One can learn much from one's own errors and precious little from one's triumphs.
The technology itself was simple enough for a child to figure out, and inexpensive enough that adults were not precious about it.
A procession of priests making an offering of blood or something precious.
We rely on them to cultivate a very precious natural resource, brainpower, and they consume a significant part of total government expenditure.
One final example of material evidence that indicates social inequality is metalwork, especially that produced in precious metals.
In addition, advances in surgical techniques increasingly allow for smaller biopsies, and precious tissue samples are quickly exhausted.
There were precious few defenders of this institution.
A literary work itself may also function as a crypt for this author, a way of holding onto someone or something precious yet problematic.
Precious substances, needing environmental stability, are sometimes stored in chalk.
In addition, it was necessary to recover the precious metals from the waste produced by goldsmiths or in the minting of coins.
Also, interpreting time is precious, so routine consultations are missing the interpreting time as the interviews need an interpreter.
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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.