peril
Americannoun
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perils
plural
-
exposure to injury, loss, or destruction; grave risk; jeopardy; danger.
They faced the peril of falling rocks.
-
something that causes or may cause injury, loss, or destruction.
verb (used with object)
noun
Synonym Usage
See danger.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of peril
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English, from Old French, from Latin perīculum “danger, test, trial,” from perī-, verb base meaning “try” (also found in the compound experīrī “to try, test”; see experience) + -culum -cle 2
Explanation
If you realize mid-climb that your rock climbing rope is frayed, you might be in peril. The word peril means imminent danger to life and limb. Peril comes from the Latin peric(u)lum, meaning danger. Today it's often used in tandem with the word mortal, which relates to death. For example, you're in mortal peril when you're flying down a cliff-side trail on your mountain bike and you hit loose gravel. Peril can also describe dangers of a less physical sort, though it's less common. If your employer sinks your 401K into what turns out to be a Ponzi scheme, he's put your retirement in peril.
Vocabulary lists containing peril
"The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs
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"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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ACT Vocabulary List
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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 moment of peril illustrates the layers making up the modern battlefield.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
Fashion giants on both sides of the Atlantic are underestimating the Chinese shopper at their own peril.
From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026
It underscores the dangers of mob mentality and the manosphere, while also emphasizing that despite all of the progress LGBTQ+ people have made, they are still in serious peril.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
So ingratiating, in fact, that one takes one’s seat at one’s peril, as will be explained.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
For some time they had been cut off from the world, as if in an invisible island; now they were laid bare again, peril had returned.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
Brighton was mentioned as a potential senior debut, but the perils around that made, for those close to Gabriel, the Champions League encounter with Sabah a better option.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
Created by Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw, the series follows five 20-something housemates in Queens as they navigate the pleasures and perils of early adulthood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2026
Plus, China’s latest AI advances, always-on transcription and the perils of big AI contracts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
Just a couple of days before that now-infamous blog post, the firm inadvertently provided a different, no-less-perfect example of the perils of mass digitization.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026
Climbing was a magnificent activity, I firmly believed, not in spite of the inherent perils, but precisely because of them.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
Whether Franklin Roosevelt consciously led the U.S. to war, or hoped to keep the U.S. out by a daring support of its periled friends, will be historians' debating ground for years to come.
From Time Magazine Archive
One night last week an old dog periled the Earl's new job.
From Time Magazine Archive
We all realize that we live in periled times, and our nation must be prepared to defend itself at a moment's notice.
From Time Magazine Archive
They periled their lives in behalf of liberty, when "'Twas treason to love her and death to defend."
From Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 by George S. Boutwell
Obeying what he conceived to be the mandate of his State, he followed the impulse of his feelings and the example of his kindred and his friends, and periled all in that belief.
Justice Department attorneys respond that fears about Snepp's being a loose cannon periling the First Amendment rights of all sorts of people are greatly exaggerated.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was impossible to touch the mud of Paris without periling the subsistence of eighteen hundred persons.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 by Various
No one could then manifest any sympathy with the proscribed without periling life.
From Josephine Makers of History by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
He was one of those men, who, under more favorable circumstances, would have been a Cook, a Parry, or a Franklin, periling everything to make farther discovery in the science of geography.
From International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art, and Science — Volume 1, No. 4, July 22, 1850 by Various
There was a mystery connected with her periling her life in the way she did that I could not then solve, but I made no inquiry into her secret.
From Uncle Daniel's Story Of "Tom" Anderson And Twenty Great Battles by John McElroy
But a monarch of the forest flung his head in furious rage, Naught he cared for sovereign sahib, sought some foe now to engage; While the crowd in panic parted, perilled pundits sought a sage.
From Time Magazine Archive
When a moral disease so fearful as this appears, parents should never rest till they have found the seat of it, and convinced the perilled child of the deadly nature of its malady.
From Household Education by Harriet Martineau
In fact, Rigges went so far as to pretend that he had himself perilled life in the attempt to secure him.
From A Day's Ride A Life's Romance by Charles James Lever
Directly he seemed to have the end in his hand, and they saw him stretch the left arm as if to throw it around the body of the perilled man.
From The Coward A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863 by Henry Morford
No, no; not one, Eneas," replied Macpherson—"no life shall be perilled in this cause but my own.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 4 by Various
But he answered, that "he could not stop to calculate chances, when his subjects were perilling their lives for his sake;" a reply, says Pulgar, which endeared him to the whole army.
From The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 2 by William Hickling Prescott
He had lost caste, he feared, with Pledge, and he was running into the enemy’s country and perilling not only himself, but Dick, in the venture.
From Follow My leader The Boys of Templeton by W. S. (Walter S.) Stacey
"Would be perilling his life by taking part against them," added Mr. Travilla.
From Elsie's Motherhood by Martha Finley
"I give thee my gage," said the cavalier, "with this understanding, then, that I am free to fly, whenever I may do so without perilling thy life, and the life of Jacinto."
From Calavar or The Knight of The Conquest, A Romance of Mexico by Robert Montgomery Bird
I thought I was perilling my head by coming here, and you tell me I have saved it.
From Vera or, The Nihilists by Oscar Wilde
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