hazard

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

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhæzɚd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈhazəd/

hazard (countable and uncountable, plural hazards)

1. (historical) A type of game played with dice. [from 14th c.]
2. Chance. [from 16th c.]
   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Richard III, act 5, scene 4:

     I will stand the hazard of the die.

   • 2006 May 20, John Patterson, The Guardian:

     I see animated movies are now managing, by hazard or design, to reflect our contemporary reality more accurately than live-action movies.

3. The chance of suffering harm; danger, peril, risk of loss. [from 16th c.]

   He encountered the enemy at the hazard of his reputation and life.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Rogers

     Men are led on from one stage of life to another in a condition of the utmost hazard.

   • 1599, Wm. Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar:

     Why, now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark! The storm is up and all is on the hazard.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

     He then launched forth into a panegyric on Allworthy's goodness; into the highest encomiums on his friendship; and concluded by saying, he should never forgive his brother for having put the place which he bore in that friendship to a hazard.

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion‎:

     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:  […] .

   • 2009 December 27, Barbara Ellen, The Guardian:

     Quite apart from the gruesome road hazards, snow is awful even when you don't have to travel.

4. An obstacle or other feature which causes risk or danger; originally in sports, and now applied more generally. [from 19th c.]

   The video game involves guiding a character on a skateboard past all kinds of hazards.

5. (golf) A sand or water obstacle on a golf course.
6. (billiards) The act of potting a ball, whether the object ball (winning hazard) or the player's ball (losing hazard).
7. (obsolete) Anything that is hazarded or risked, such as a stake in gambling.
   • c.1600?, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

     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.

8. (tennis) The side of the court into which the ball is served.
9. (programming) 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.

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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Clarke

     Men hazard nothing by a course of evangelical obedience.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Fuller

     He hazards his neck to the halter.

2. To risk (something); to venture, to incur, or bring on.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare

     I hazarded the loss of whom I loved.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Landor

     They hazard to cut their feet.

   I'll hazard a guess.

Borrowed from German [Term?], from Old French hasart.[1]

• IPA^(key): /ɦazart/

hazard m

1. gambling
2. risk, gamble

hazard m (plural hazards)

1. Archaic spelling of hasard, chiefly used before 1800

hazard m (invariable)

1. hazard lights (on a vehicle)

hazard m (plural hazards)

1. hazard; obstacle

• French: hasard

• IPA^(key): /ˈxa.zart/

• Audio

  (file)

hazard m inan

1. (singular only) gambling
2. (electronics) race condition

• IPA^(key): /xǎzard/
• Hyphenation: ha‧zard

hàzard m (Cyrillic spelling ха̀зард)

1. gamble, gambling
2. risk, hazard