Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Risk of loss or injury; peril or danger.
  • noun Law A defendant's risk or danger of conviction when put on trial.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An even chance; a game evenly balanced.
  • noun Exposure to death, loss, or injury; hazard; danger; peril.
  • noun Synonyms Peril, etc. See danger and risk.
  • To jeopardize: as, he jeopardied his fame.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb rare To jeopardize.
  • noun Exposure to death, loss, or injury; hazard; danger.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Danger of loss, harm, or failure.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a source of danger; a possibility of incurring loss or misfortune

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English juperti, from Old French jeu parti, even game, uncertainty : jeu, game (from Latin iocus, joke, game; see yek- in Indo-European roots) + parti, past participle of partir, to divide (from Latin partīre, from pars, part-, part; see part).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English jepardie, from Old French jeu parti ("a divided game, i.e. an even game, an even chance"), from Medieval Latin iocus partītus ("an even chance, an alternative"), from Latin iocus ("jest, play, game") + partītus, perfect passive participle of partiō ("divide"); see joke and party.

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Examples

Comments

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  • I completely lost the shape of this word today. Took me ten goes to spell it correctly. Even then the right version was starting to look creepy so I replaced it in the text with another word.

    May 22, 2009

  • I understand this phenomenon, which happens to me with certain words as well. But in the case of "jeopardy", I think there is a relatively straightforward remedy. Think how dangerous it would be to be stuck in a room with a bunch of leopards. You'd be all leopardy and definitely in jeopardy.

    May 22, 2009

  • Huh. I always thought this was a Law French term, containing the pronoun jeo "I", as indeed jeofail is. But no, it's in effect jeu parti "divided game", a situation in games such as chess.

    May 22, 2009

  • Could you put that in the form of a question, Q?

    May 22, 2009

  • jeapody

    jeopardy

    jeaopody

    jeapordy

    jepordy

    jepardy

    jeopody

    jeapardy

    jeaopardy

    ...

    May 22, 2009