danger
Americannoun
-
liability or exposure to harm or injury; risk; peril.
-
an instance or cause of peril; menace.
-
Obsolete. power; jurisdiction; domain.
noun
-
the state of being vulnerable to injury, loss, or evil; risk
-
a person or thing that may cause injury, pain, etc
-
obsolete power
-
liable to
-
critically ill in hospital
Related Words
Danger, hazard, peril, jeopardy imply harm that one may encounter. Danger is the general word for liability to all kinds of injury or evil consequences, either near at hand and certain, or remote and doubtful: to be in danger of being killed. Hazard suggests a danger that one can foresee but cannot avoid: A mountain climber is exposed to many hazards. Peril usually denotes great and imminent danger: The passengers on the disabled ship were in great peril. Jeopardy, a less common word, has essentially the same meaning as peril, but emphasizes exposure to the chances of a situation: To save his friend he put his life in jeopardy.
Other Word Forms
- dangerless adjective
- superdanger noun
Etymology
Origin of danger
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English da(u)nger, from Anglo-French, Old French dangier, alteration of dongier (by influence of dam damage ), from Vulgar Latin domniārium (unrecorded), equivalent to Latin domini(um) dominion + -ārium (neuter of -ārius -ary )
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.
"There's danger that they will escalate situations or respond very aggressively in... tense situations," he said.
From BBC
In its many guises, idolatry has survived, despite regular and often cataclysmic proof of its dangers, for centuries and many people will consider a much-larger-than-life golden statue of a president to be perfectly splendid.
From Los Angeles Times
A parallel danger lurks in the Himalayas and other high mountain areas like the Andes, where melting glaciers have created thousands of new lakes.
Such an operation would be extremely challenging and fraught with danger, according to military experts and former US defence officials who spoke to the BBC.
From BBC
Japan’s economy remains at some risk as it emerges from several lost decades of stagnation, and the Iran war oil shock is another danger.
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.
