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
-
was imperilingprogressive
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was imperillingprogressive
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were imperilingprogressive
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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:
This helps him identify specific techniques and important details that might have otherwise been overlooked—and avoid cultural missteps that might imperil conservation efforts by driving a wedge between locals and foreign conservators.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
They depend on decades-old Soviet-era equipment, while fuel shortages imperil their effectiveness.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026
"India is a big enough power," Clary says, "that disequilibrium does not imperil its continued rise."
From BBC ● May 7, 2026
Microsoft on Tuesday warned a judge that the Pentagon blacklisting of Anthropic could hamper US warfighters and imperil the country's drive to lead in artificial intelligence.
From Barron's ● Mar. 11, 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 closing of the chokepoints at Hormuz, Bab al-Mandeb and the Black Sea collectively imperils roughly a quarter of the world’s oil supply.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
And now investors worry AI imperils the equity and credit of traditional software businesses.
From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026
Yet, it’s that same environment that imperils them.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2025
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
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
A day after structural damage imperiled the largest-ever planned office-to-residential conversion in the U.S., investors and lenders said they are reconsidering future commitments to these complex real-estate projects.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
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
He imperiled his life again to take away from the Giants the skaldic mead, which made anyone who tasted it a poet.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
The resulting haze has spread to neighbouring countries, closed thousands of schools, caused tens of thousands of respiratory infections and imperilled countless wild animals.
From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 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
On more than one occasion it has imperilled the peace of nations, and the doctrines of salvation became the watchwords of contending armies.
From Creed And Deed A Series of Discourses by Felix Adler
The entire Crace clan is resisting Susan’s nosing about, imperiling the brand and jeopardizing the Netflix deal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
The son had missed an immigration check-in, imperiling his chances of remaining in the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 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
The basins are home to two thirds of Earth's biodiversity, but rapid destruction is releasing planet-warming carbon dioxide and imperilling global climate targets.
From Reuters ● Oct. 28, 2023
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
Geithner worried about imperilling the fragile recovery, and he wanted to coax financiers into accepting other industry reforms.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 14, 2016
"Is there no other way, no honourable way, in which this duel can be avoided without imperilling your future?"
From Too Rich A Romance by Adolph Streckfuss
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.
