From Middle English hasard, from Old French hasart (noun), hasarder (verb), from Arabic زهر.

• (America) IPA: /ˈhæ.zɚd/
• (British) IPA: /ˈhaz.əd/

hazard

1. 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.

   • a. 1729, John Rogers, The Difficulties of Obtaining Salvation:

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

2. 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.

3. (in driving a vehicle) An obstacle or other feature that presents a risk or danger that justifies the driver in taking action to avoid it.
4. (golf) A sand or water obstacle on a golf course.
5. (billiards) The act of potting a ball, whether the object ball (winning hazard) or the player's ball (losing hazard).
6. (historical) A game of chance played with dice, usually for monetary stakes; popular mainly from 14th c. to 19th c.
   • 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, III.iii:

     [T]here's Harry diets himself—for gaming and is now under a hazard Regimen.

   • 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 1849–1850, →OCLC ↗:

     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.

7. Chance. [from 16th c.]
8. (obsolete) Anything that is hazarded or risked, such as a stake in gambling.
9. (tennis) The side of the court into which the ball is served.
10. (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.

• (chance) fortune, luck; see also Thesaurus:luck
• (chance of suffering harm) adventure
• (anything hazarded or risked) bet, pledge, skin in the game, wager

• French: hasard, danger
• German: Zufall
• Portuguese: risco
• Russian: шанс
• Spanish: riesgo

• French: danger
• German: Gefahr
• Portuguese: perigo
• Russian: опа́сность
• Spanish: peligro

• German: Hindernis

• French: hasard
• Russian: поме́ха

hazard (hazards, present participle hazarding; simple past and past participle hazarded)

1. To expose to chance; to take a risk.
   • a. 1676, John Clarke, Excuses of the Irreligious:

     to be consistent, you ought to be a Chriſtian in temper and practice; for you hazard nothing by a course of evangelical obedience

   • 1642, Thomas Fuller, The Holy State, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Roger Daniel for John Williams, […], →OCLC ↗:

     He hazards his neck to the halter.

2. To risk (something); to venture, incur, or bring on.

   I'll hazard a guess.

   • 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, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     I hazarded the loss of whom I loved.

   • 1824, Walter Savage Landor, “Lord Chesterfield and Lord Chatham”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume II, London: […] Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC ↗:

     They hazard to cut their feet.

• French: tenter, hasarder
• German: riskieren, hasardieren
• Spanish: arriesgar, peligrar, aventurar

1. Surname.
2. A home rule city/county seat in Perry County, Kentucky.