jeopardize
verb
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Jeopardize Has a Controversial History
Imagine you’re a contestant on a game show, and your task is to provide a question as a response to this statement from the host: “This word was once controversial, and in 1870 a grammarian called it ‘a foolish and intolerable word,’ a view shared by many 19th-century critics.” If you answered, “What is jeopardize?,” you might be going home with some money! The preferred word back then was jeopard, which first appeared in print in the 14th century. The upstart jeopardize didn’t arrive until the late 16th century, and took a while to catch on. In 1828, Noah Webster himself declared jeopardize to be “a modern word, used by respectable writers in America, but synonymous with jeopard, and therefore useless.” Unfortunately for the champions of jeopard, increased usage of jeopardize ultimately put the former word in jeopardy. Jeopard is now only rarely heard.
Examples of jeopardize in a Sentence
Vanessa Swales, jsonline.com, 21 Oct. 2025
Taylor said divestment would jeopardize those returns, which are factored into the premiums insurers charge property owners.
—Ethan Varian, Mercury News, 19 Oct. 2025
Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable.
—Robert Alexander, MSNBC Newsweek, 17 Oct. 2025
The challenge for cable news networks in offering streams of their content has been to do so without jeopardizing the revenue stream of subscription fees from cable and satellite operators.
—Ted Johnson, Deadline, 16 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for jeopardize
Cite this Entry
“Jeopardize.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jeopardize. Accessed 23 Oct. 2025.
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