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.

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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 )

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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

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

Exposing cells directly to a chemical can reveal a potential hazard, but it does not, by itself, show whether eating a food exposes human tissues to enough of that chemical to cause the same damage.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 14, 2026

"The threat from an eruption comes from the ejection of incandescent rocks accompanied by heavy ashfall. Another potential hazard arises from lava flows if the eruption resumes and continues," agency head Lana Saria said.

From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026

Looking back, he said it was "quite evident that nobody was fully appraised of the potential hazard that they were exposed to".

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

Joey needs good medical care, but she isn’t a public health hazard.

From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly

These can include exercise, assessment of hazards that could contribute to falls, and education tailored to a person's individual risk.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 2026

One priority is to strengthen disaster preparedness, with governments agreeing in advance what action to take when hazards emerge - from evacuation to protecting vulnerable infrastructure.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026

National climate assessments are important because their projections can inform federal infrastructure planning, risk assessments, regulations, disaster preparedness and cost-benefit analyses, including from hazards such as wildfires, floods, drought and sea-level rise.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2026

Along the way, they can create hazards for ships, marine operations, and infrastructure.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026

Even more important is the fact that medical men who received their basic training before 1950 have had little opportunity to realize the critical importance of the process and the hazards of disrupting it.

From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson

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

He hazarded that the onscreen manhunt was between seventy and eighty per cent as intense as the real thing.

From The New Yorker ● Feb. 15, 2017

“It’s like somebody’s twisting something inside me,” I hazarded.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

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

In August, Seaman Apprentice Ryan Mays was charged with aggravated arson and the willful hazarding of a vessel.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 19, 2021

Benson pleaded not guilty in July to charges of negligence and hazarding a vessel, tied to the 2017 collision between the USS Fitzgerald and a Philippine-flagged shipping vessel near the Japanese coast.

From Washington Times ● Jan. 3, 2019

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

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

Related Words

• accident
• mishap
• possibility
• risk