You searched for: “hazard”
hazard (s) (noun), hazards (pl)
1. Something which is potentially very precarious or unsafe.
2. A dangerous or otherwise unwanted out come; especially, one resulting from the failure of an engineered system.
3. A natural or constructed obstacle on a golf course: When Jake was playing golf there was a sand trap and a small lake that were hazards which he hoped to avoid.
4. Etymology: from Arabic al-zahr, "a gambling term, a die (one of a pair of dice)" and then hazard evolved from being the name of a game of chance (gambling) to a more general meaning of any "chance, risk, peril, or danger".
—This etymology was compiled from information located in
Family Word Finder, A New Thesaurus of Synonyms and Antonyms in Dictionary Form;
The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.; Pleasantville, New York;
1975; page 375.
This entry is located in the following unit: English Words in Action, Group H (page 3)
hazard (verb), hazards; hazarded; hazarding
1. To risk losing something in an attempt to win or to achieve an objective: Frank decided to hazard a few dollars in the gambling casino in hopes of winning more than he might lose.
2. To offer a guess or an opinion even though it might be wrong: The teacher asked his students, who were studying vocabulary, if anyone would like to hazard a guess as to what "nostalgia" meant.
To make an attempt to make a guess about the results of an action.
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This entry is located in the following unit: English Words in Action, Group H (page 3)