Word of the Day : January 28, 2021

jeopardy \JEP-er-dee\ noun

Definition

1 : exposure to or imminence of death, loss, or injury : danger

2 law : the danger that an accused person is subjected to when on trial for a criminal offense

Did You Know?

Geoffrey Chaucer employed the word jeopardy in his late 14th-century masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, but its Middle English form can make it hard to spot: it appears in the phrase "in jupartie" with a meaning very much akin to the word's meaning in the modern phrase "in jeopardy"—that is, "in danger." The spellings of what we now render only as jeopardy were formerly myriad. The Oxford English Dictionary reports that between the late 14th and mid-17th centuries the word was spelled in a great variety of ways, among them iuperti, yoberte, iepardye, ieoberye, and jobardy.

Aired January 28, 2021

All Merriam-Webster content is available at www.merriam-webster.com