Word.ws English Dictionary

high-risk, high-reward

high-risk, high-reward adjective: involving significant potential for loss but also offering the possibility of substantial gains or benefits if successful.

Adjective

high-risk, high-reward

  1. (idiomatic) Involving significant potential for loss but also offering the possibility of substantial gains or benefits if successful.
    • I warned him that this was a high-risk, high reward situation and that he should be prepared to lose it all.
    • It [sc. “investment”] should not be loosely used as a synonym for “speculation,” which is the outlay of money in an enterprise offering the hopes of high reward in return for the incurring of high risk.1948, Theodore Jesse Hoover, “The Valuation of Mining Shares”, in The Economics of Mining (Non-Ferrous Metals), third edition, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, risk" "high reward"/...

Examples of high-risk, high-reward in a sentence

  • “These are high-risk, high-reward stocks,” Walter Altherr, an analyst at Merrill Lynch Japan, said.1993 December 22, James Sterngold, “Japan's Loan Sharks Make Good Money in Bad Times”, in The New York Times (Business Day: Market Place...
  • The UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), which backs high-risk, high-reward projects, has awarded £81m to 27 teams.2025 February 18, Damian Carrington, “Early warning system for climate tipping points given £81m kickstart”, in Katharine Viner, editor...

Questions about high-risk, high-reward

What does high-risk, high-reward mean?
High-risk, high-reward means involving significant potential for loss but also offering the possibility of substantial gains or benefits if successful.
How do you use high-risk, high-reward in a sentence?
“These are high-risk, high-reward stocks,” Walter Altherr, an analyst at Merrill Lynch Japan, said.
What part of speech is high-risk, high-reward?
High-risk, high-reward is an adjective.

Words near high-risk, high-reward in the dictionary

  1. high-rise syndrome
  2. high-riser
  3. high-risers
  4. high-rises
  5. high-risk
  6. high-risk, high-reward
  7. high-roller
  8. high-rollers
  9. high-school
  10. high-schooler
  11. high-schoolers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: high-risk, high-reward (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.

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