imperil
Americanverb (used with object)
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imperils,
present (3rd person singular)
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imperiled,
past participle, past
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imperilled,
past participle, past (especially British)
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imperiling,
present participle
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imperilling
present participle (especially British)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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imperilsimple
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imperilssimple
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have imperiledperfect
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have imperilledperfect
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has imperiledperfect
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has imperilledperfect
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am imperilingprogressive
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am imperillingprogressive
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are imperilingprogressive
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are imperillingprogressive
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is imperilingprogressive
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is imperillingprogressive
-
have been imperilingperfect progressive
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have been imperillingperfect progressive
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has been imperilingperfect progressive
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has been imperillingperfect progressive
Past
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imperiledsimple
-
imperilledsimple
-
had imperiledperfect
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had imperilledperfect
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was imperilingprogressive
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was imperillingprogressive
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were imperilingprogressive
-
were imperillingprogressive
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had been imperilingperfect progressive
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had been imperillingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of imperil
Explanation
One thing can imperil another when it threatens to be harmful. For example, an approaching storm with hurricane-force winds might imperil the geraniums you just planted in your front yard. A city's budget cuts might imperil a school's ability to hire new teachers and buy supplies. The lack of money, in other words, is a threat to schools. Likewise, a factory's refusal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions will imperil the air quality nearby — and ultimately, imperil the health of the whole planet. The word imperil comes from in and peril, meaning "danger."
Vocabulary lists containing imperil
This Week in Words: March 10 - 16, 2018
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This Week in Words: September 17 - 24, 2017
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This Week in Words: December 1 - 7 , 2018
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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:
But he warns that even using the 4% rule, persistently high inflation would imperil portfolios by making retirees withdraw more and more money each year.
From Barron's ● May 30, 2026
Taiwanese officials fear even the most subtle rhetorical change in policy from Trump could imperil a delicate status quo that has held for decades.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
"India is a big enough power," Clary says, "that disequilibrium does not imperil its continued rise."
From BBC ● May 7, 2026
In the mid-19th century, do-gooders such as William Alcott and Sarah Josepha Hale began urging children be fed a bland diet, lest rich flavoring imperil their health and futures.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
Altogether it is thought–though it is really only a guess, based on extrapolating from cratering rates on the Moon–that some two thousand asteroids big enough to imperil civilized existence regularly cross our orbit.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
The situation imperils GM’s heavy-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, as well as midsize trucks that compete for buyers with Toyota’s Tacoma and Ford’s Ranger.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
And now investors worry AI imperils the equity and credit of traditional software businesses.
From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026
The court’s action imperils the CPSC’s ability to ban products that may maim or kill consumers, including children, giving corporations freer rein to flood the market with dangerous goods.
From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2025
Hall is very aware of how climate change imperils his harvest.
From Salon ● Jan. 16, 2025
The Honorable Judge Edmund Harrison of Maryland issued a warrant for his arrest, accusing him of “promulgating an infernal orthodoxy that imperils the fabric of good society.”
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
Inventories of crude are the least imperiled, but there’s more concern about inventories for products such as gasoline and diesel.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 9, 2026
Each company knows they're looking not just at profits but also at imperiled property and people.
From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026
The dispute imperiled funding that was deemed essential for Southern California’s resurgent defense and aerospace sectors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2026
Barron’s advised readers to avoid Hims stock in March 2025, arguing that an end to the GLP-1 shortage imperiled shareholders.
From Barron's ● Mar. 9, 2026
This is the second lesson of Blink: understanding the true nature of instinctive decision making requires us to be forgiving of those people trapped in circumstances where good judgment is imperiled.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
The upward trend in global average temperatures has brought unseasonably warm weather to Switzerland's higher altitudes, and a reduction in snow has imperilled some of its ski resorts and competitions.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
Canada's federal government on Monday gave Marineland conditional approval to sell its 30 imperilled beluga whales to parks in the United States, after rejecting an export request to China.
From Barron's ● Jan. 26, 2026
Over the coming weeks and months, can a deal be done where the war stops, Ukraine does not feel defeated, Europe does not feel imperilled and transatlantic relations are as near to conventional as possible?
From BBC ● Feb. 25, 2025
Thus they “are emissaries from an imperilled ecosystem.”
From Washington Post ● Feb. 6, 2023
England has never had her national strength, her political position, or even her prestige seriously imperilled since that time.
From Modern Leaders: Being a Series of Biographical Sketches by Justin McCarthy
In the film, Rogan reads from Swan’s book, Countdown, that “the modern world is threatening sperm counts and is imperiling the future of the human race.”
From Slate ● Apr. 16, 2026
Such productivity-focused products are becoming widely adopted in the workforce, and OpenAI has so far lagged behind its startup rival Anthropic in winning this market, imperiling its lead in the AI race.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
Growing competition and weak margins—Rivian has never posted a quarterly profit—are further imperiling the sector.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2025
That means they are also imperiling some of the world’s most important food-producing lowlands in the Nile and Mekong deltas and cities from Shanghai to New York.
From Salon ● Jul. 28, 2025
Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim, and somebody had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain of inherited habit that was imperiling them all.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
Along with gaseous reactive nitrogen, satellites burning up as they re-enter the atmosphere at the end of their lives leave tiny particles of aluminum oxide, imperilling the still-recovering ozone layer.
From Salon ● Apr. 4, 2025
Officials held the robot for 10 days, imperilling plans to show her work at the Great Pyramid of Giza on Thursday.
From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2021
It may be offering the movies a short-term fix by imperilling their long-term health.
From The Guardian ● May 16, 2019
She wanted to report what she’d seen, but a co-worker warned her that she would be imperilling herself.
From The New Yorker ● May 2, 2016
The need of some of the items upon his little list of accessories had become urgent, imperilling the work upon the estate.
From Anthony Lyveden by Dornford Yates
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.
