hazard

American  

[haz-erd] / ˈhæz ərd /

noun

• hazards
  plural

1. an unavoidable danger or risk, even though often foreseeable.

   The job was full of hazards.

   Antonyms:

   safety

2. something causing unavoidable danger, peril, risk, or difficulty.

   The many hazards of the big city did nothing to convince her to leave.

3. the absence or lack of predictability; chance; uncertainty.

   There is an element of hazard in the execution of the most painstaking plans.

   Synonyms:

   fortuitousness, fortuity, accident

4. Golf. a bunker, sand trap, or the like, constituting an obstacle.

5. the uncertainty of the result in throwing a die.

6. a game played with two dice, an earlier and more complicated form of craps.

7. Court Tennis. any of the winning openings.

8. (in English billiards) a stroke by which the player pockets the object ball winning hazard or their own ball after contact with another ball losing hazard.

---

verb (used with object)

• hazards,
  present (3rd person singular)
• hazarded,
  past participle,  past
• hazarding
  present participle

1. to offer (a statement, conjecture, etc.) with the possibility of facing criticism, disapproval, failure, or the like; venture.

   He hazarded a guess, with trepidation, as to her motives in writing the article.

2. to put to the risk of being lost; expose to risk.

   In making the investment, he hazarded all his savings.

   Synonyms:

   imperil, peril, endanger, stake

3. to take or run the risk of (a misfortune, penalty, etc.).

   Thieves hazard arrest.

4. to venture upon (anything of doubtful issue).

   to hazard a dangerous encounter.

idioms

1. at hazard, at risk; at stake; subject to chance.

   His reputation was at hazard in his new ventures.

hazard British  

/ ˈhæzəd /

noun

1. exposure or vulnerability to injury, loss, evil, etc

2. at risk; in danger

3. a thing likely to cause injury, etc

4. golf an obstacle such as a bunker, a road, rough, water, etc

5. chance; accident (esp in the phrase by hazard )

6. a gambling game played with two dice

7. real tennis

   1. the receiver's side of the court

   2. one of the winning openings

8. billiards a scoring stroke made either when a ball other than the striker's is pocketed ( winning hazard ) or the striker's cue ball itself ( losing hazard )

---

verb

1. to chance or risk

2. to venture (an opinion, guess, etc)

3. to expose to danger

Synonym Usage

See danger.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• hazarder
  noun
• hazard-free
  adjective
• hazardable
  adjective
• hazardless
  adjective
• prehazard
  adjective
• unhazarded
  adjective
• unhazarding
  adjective
• well-hazarded
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• hazards
  plural

Participles

• hazarding
  present
• hazarded
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• hazard
  simple
• hazards
  simple
• have hazarded
  perfect
• has hazarded
  perfect
• am hazarding
  progressive
• are hazarding
  progressive
• is hazarding
  progressive
• have been hazarding
  perfect progressive
• has been hazarding
  perfect progressive

Past

• hazarded
  simple
• had hazarded
  perfect
• was hazarding
  progressive
• were hazarding
  progressive
• had been hazarding
  perfect progressive

Future

• will hazard
  simple
• will have hazarded
  perfect
• will be hazarding
  progressive
• will have been hazarding
  perfect progressive

---

Etymology

Origin of hazard

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English hasard from Old French, perhaps from Arabic al-zahr “the die”

---

Explanation

If something is a hazard, it is a potential source of danger. Balloons are fun, but they're a hazard for little kids who might put them in their mouths. If you play miniature golf, you have to watch for hazards on the course — obstacles like the sand trap beside the dinosaur or the water hazard just past the windmill. As a verb, hazard means to take a risk, especially for the chance of a good return. You might hazard your chances at the roulette table or hazard a guess — that is, risk making a guess when you aren't certain.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hazard hazards hazarded hazarding

This September, the department ordered the building’s owner to “immediately remove all fired damaged debris that pose a Present, immenent, extreme and immediate hazard or danger to life or limb, health or safety.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026

Justice Scalia didn’t answer that comment, but I will hazard a response.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

Without the hazard ratio, along with other data, it is “difficult to assess the magnitude, durability and commercial relevance of benefit in adjuvant melanoma,” Citi’s Geoff Meacham told investors in August.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 21, 2026

The Federal Aviation Administration cleared the 250-foot structure Friday, finding it would not pose a substantial hazard to aircraft using nearby Reagan National Airport.

From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2026

The ultimate answer is to use less toxic chemicals so that the public hazard from their misuse is greatly reduced.

From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson

Tropical Storm Rachel is expected to make landfall either in northern Baja California or San Diego County as early as Saturday night, bringing with it a slew of potential hazards, including damaging coastal flooding.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2026

So much of Herzog’s career has been about weighing the hazards of happiness.

From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2026

Military leaders have raised the level of force protection training, which includes combat first aid, additional firearms drills and awareness of chemical, nuclear and biological hazards.

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

Nonstop swells combined with a “super” El Niño phenomenon have washed away truckloads of sand from Newport Beach and other parts of the California coast, exposing hazards buried a century ago.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026

It was as though even his nerves, seasoned by a long career of hazards and dangerous undertakings, had given out at last.

From "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie

I hazarded a number of guesses as to where the movement, and more importantly the reaction to it, was headed.

From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2022

Edward Holmes does not like making predictions, but last year he hazarded a few.

From Science Magazine ● Aug. 19, 2021

If “Don’t Read Poetry” had hazarded more judgments about specific types of poems — appraising and not merely praising their structural, technical and thematic content — then Burt would have produced a much finer book.

From Washington Post ● May 30, 2019

“I think,” my friend hazarded, “that she just doesn’t hesitate.”

From Slate ● Mar. 7, 2016

“We have hazarded our lives for his cause.”

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

By 1858, the famous Butterfield stagecoaches were ferrying the mail through the cut over the pass, hazarding a vertiginous angle comparable with San Francisco’s Lombard Street, without the switchbacks.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026

Borinsky invites guesses; the problem is that we might not care enough for any of the people or ideas onstage to bother hazarding them.

From New York Times ● Mar. 5, 2023

It presents those barriers outside of the structures that produce them, and without hazarding the organizational requirements to win a majority for the program its subjects support.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 9, 2022

Yet nowhere in the Federalist essays do any of the authors explain why liberty is so valuable that it is worth hazarding the consequences of human nature.

From Washington Times ● Jan. 4, 2022

I feared early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---

Related Words

• accident
• mishap
• possibility
• risk

---