Word.ws English Dictionary

hazard

UK/ˈhæzəd//ˈhæzɚd/

hazard noun: a game of chance played with dice, usually for monetary stakes, popular mainly from 14th c. to 19th c.

hazard: a game of chance played with dice, usually for monetary stakes, popular mainly from 14th c. to 19th...
Image: JonRichfield, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

hazard (countable and uncountable, plural hazards)

  1. (historical) A game of chance played with dice, usually for monetary stakes, popular mainly from 14th c. to 19th c.
    • [T]here's Harry diets himself—for gaming and is now under a hazard Regimen.1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, III.iii
    • All the young men go to Spratt’s after their balls. It is de rigueur, my dear; and they play billiards as they used to play macao and hazard in Mr. Fox’s time.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 40, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
  2. Chance; accident, unpredictability.
    • I will stand the hazard of the die.c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Richard III, act 5, scene 4
    • I see animated movies are now managing, by hazard or design, to reflect our contemporary reality more accurately than live-action movies.2006 May 20, John Patterson, The Guardian
    Synonyms:
    fortune
  3. (uncountable) The risk of some loss or harm; danger, peril, the chance of an adverse outcome.
    • He encountered the enemy at the hazard of his reputation and life.
    • Men are led on from one stage of life to another in a condition of the utmost hazard.a. 1729, John Rogers, The Difficulties of Obtaining Salvation
    Synonyms:
    adventure
  4. (countable) A situation involving such a risk of harm or loss; (later also) a person or object which poses such a risk, something seen as a source of danger or difficulty.
    • The video game involves guiding a character on a skateboard past all kinds of hazards.
    • If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the ever more expensive and then universally known killing hazards of gasoline cars: […].2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion
  5. (real tennis) Each of the various openings or galleries around the side of a court.
  6. (obsolete) Anything that is hazarded or risked, such as a stake in gambling.
    • But if you please
      To shoot another arrow that self way
      Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
      As I will watch the aim, or to find both
      Or bring your latter hazard back again
      And thankfully rest debtor for the first.c. 1600, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
  7. A stroke which results in potting a ball, whether the object ball (winning hazard) or the player's ball (losing hazard).
  8. Something which prevents free striking of the ball, such as a sand or water obstacle.
  9. (Ireland, historical) A cabstand, especially in Dublin.
    • Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the hazard.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 5: Lotus Eaters]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 73
  10. A problem with the instruction pipeline in CPU microarchitectures when the next instruction cannot execute in the following clock cycle, potentially leading to incorrect results.

Verb

hazard (third-person singular simple present hazards, present participle hazarding, simple past and past participle hazarded)

  1. To expose to chance; to take a risk.
    • to be consistent, you ought to be a Chriſtian in temper and practice; for you hazard nothing by a course of evangelical obediencea. 1676, John Clarke, Excuses of the Irreligious
    • He hazards his neck to the halter.1642, Thomas Fuller, The Holy State, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Roger Daniel for John Williams, […], →OCLC
  2. To risk (something); to venture, incur, or bring on.
    • I'll hazard a guess.
    • I hazarded the loss of whom I loved.c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Proper noun capitalized: Hazard

Hazard (countable and uncountable, plural Hazards)

  1. A surname.
  2. A home rule city, the county seat of Perry County, Kentucky, United States.

hazard meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

hazard in Tamil

இடர், இடையூறு, இன்னல, இடர்ப்பாடு, இன்னல், தீங்கு

hazard in Marathi

hazard, danger
संकट saṅkaṭ

hazard in Urdu

hazard
جوکھم jokhim

hazard in Bengali

বিপত্তি, ঝুঁকিগ্রহণ, ঝুঁকি, বিপদ্, অপায়, অত্যয়
More languagesFewer languages
hazard in Malayalam
ആപത്ത് āpattŭ, അപായം apāyaṁ
hazard in Kannada
ಅಪಾಯ, ಹಾನಿ, ನಾಶ, ಬೀಳು
hazard in Arabic
مُخَاطَرَة muḵāṭara, مُغَامَرَة muḡāmara
hazard in Malay
bahaya
hazard in Indonesian
bahaya

Examples of hazard in a sentence

  • Hazard at the clubs and in fashionable society was conducted with all decorum.1901, William Biggs Boulton, The Amusements of Old London, volume I, London: John C. Nimmo, page 139:
  • She realized then that, of course, no one was playing hazard.2002, Jo Beverley, Hazard, →ISBN:
  • The storm is up and all is on the hazard.1599, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar:
  • He […] concluded by saying, he should never forgive his brother for having put the place which he bore in that friendship to a hazard.1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

All 40 example sentences with hazard

Synonyms of hazard

All synonyms of hazard

Forms of hazard

Noun
pluralhazards
Verb
third-person singular presenthazards
present participlehazarding
past participlehazarded
pasthazarded
Proper noun
pluralHazards

Plural of hazard: hazards

Origin of hazard

From Middle English hasard, from Old French hasart (“a game of dice”) (noun), hasarder (verb), from Arabic اَلزَّهْر (az-zahr, “the dice”). Compare Spanish azar, Portuguese azar.

Words formed from hazard

Phrases with hazard

Questions about hazard

What does hazard mean?
Hazard means a game of chance played with dice, usually for monetary stakes, popular mainly from 14th c. to 19th c.
What is hazard in Tamil?
Hazard in Tamil is இடர், இடையூறு, இன்னல. See Hazard meaning in Tamil.
How do you use hazard in a sentence?
Hazard at the clubs and in fashionable society was conducted with all decorum.
What part of speech is hazard?
Hazard can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hazard?
Hazard is pronounced /ˈhæzəd/ (UK).
What is the plural of hazard?
The plural of hazard is hazards.

Words near hazard in the dictionary

  1. Hazara Division
  2. Hazara Pakistan
  3. Hazaragi
  4. Hazarajat
  5. Hazaras
  6. hazard
  7. hazard a guess
  8. hazard creep
  9. hazard light
  10. hazard lights
  11. hazard pay

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hazard (page history and authors); Hazard (page history and authors); hazard (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); संकट (Marathi) (page history and authors); جوکھم (Urdu) (page history and authors); hazard (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hazard (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-hazard.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hazard.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hazard. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.