… looked like a fugitive, who had escaped from something in clothes caught up at hazard. Willa Cather
3
hazards plural: special lights on a vehicle that flash on and off and are used to warn other drivers (as when the vehicle is not working properly) : hazard lights
If you do break down or crash, immediately turn on your hazards.Shape
Drivers should also turn off their hazards when signaling to exit the highway. John Cichowski
4
: a golf-course obstacle (such as a bunker or a pond)
5
: a game of chance like craps played with two dice
At first hazard was a game of chance played with dice. The English word comes from medieval French, in which the game was called hasard. This French word was probably borrowed from Arabic az-zahr, meaning “the dice” or “one of the dice.” The game was borrowed from the French by the English, and within a few centuries what had been a chance taken on the outcome of a throw of the dice could be any venture or risk. Now “chance” or “venture” and “risk” or “peril” are the usual meanings of hazard. The verb hazard emerged in the 16th century.
Noun the tumbledown old barn was considered a fire hazard it was only by hazard and good fortune that we found our way back to the trail Verb His friend asked him to hazard a small sum in a business venture. just so the tourists could see the sea lions up close, the captain needlessly hazarded his ship
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Two of the policies that Kinder explores are sick time and hazard pay. Katy Golvala, Hartford Courant, 4 Sep. 2022 But the program does not include disaster insurance or hazard pay, which means workers won’t be paid for work lost during wildfires. Jess Lander, San Francisco Chronicle, 31 Aug. 2022 The terms include hazard pay and an educational incentive increase. Steve Lord, Chicago Tribune, 10 Aug. 2022 Heat kills more Americans each year than any other weather hazard, including hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, according to the National Weather Service. Celina Tebor, USA TODAY, 30 Aug. 2022 Compost carries with it the risk of attracting wildlife such as birds that could become a hazard to aircraft taking off and landing. Kelly Yamanouchi, ajc, 10 Aug. 2022 There were also signs that E.A.s were, despite the hazard of fanaticism, increasingly prone to pluralism themselves. Gideon Lewis-kraus, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2022 The legislation will create performance standards that require these batteries to be secured, require warning labels and require that the warning labels clearly identify the hazard of ingestion, among other things. Caitlin O'kane, CBS News, 5 Aug. 2022 This may be due to aging infrastructure that was designed to manage a hazard much less menacing than the extreme weather events that are occurring today, such as levees or water reservoirs being exceeded, according to the study. Julia Jacobo, ABC News, 3 Aug. 2022
Verb
No other writers are so closely associated with the King, even if their run of collaborations with Elvis was ultimately cut short by… want to hazard a guess? Chris Willman, Variety, 4 July 2022 There is not a Jew in the world who wouldn’t assess the lineup, consider his classmates, and hazard a guess—who went Nazi? Mattie Kahn, The Atlantic, 5 May 2022 Data about ancient quakes and tsunamis like the one that reshaped society here 3,800 years ago could offer a longer-term perspective to hazard planners. Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 7 Apr. 2022 The researchers didn't hazard a guess as to how many more years life on Earth could exist.NBC News, 19 Jan. 2022 Any more books at this point would just add to the fire hazard your house has become thanks to a lifetime of book hoarding. Barbara Vandenburgh, USA TODAY, 24 Dec. 2021 Reynaldo López did not hazard a third pickoff throw. Matt Kawahara, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 Sep. 2021 In a recent Institute of International Finance, chief economist Robin Brooks and his team hazard a few guesses. William Pesek, Forbes, 31 May 2021 The thing is, despite Amy’s rather cursory research process — her journalism-ism — the film does at times threaten to hazard a semi-profound observation about our changing relationship to information. Jessica Kiang, Rolling Stone, 13 May 2021 See More
Word History
Etymology
Noun and Verb
Middle English, from Anglo-French hasard, from Old Spanish azar, from Arabic al-zahr the die