dangers

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of danger.

   The expedition faced countless dangers while crossing the frozen pass.

   Scientists continue to study the dangers posed by rising sea levels.

   Note

   The plural belongs to the countable side of the word: separate hazards that can be named and listed, like a frozen pass or rising seas. Danger as a condition stays singular, so we say in danger and, for a railway signal showing stop, at danger, never in dangers. The same spelling also serves as the obsolete verb form, so in older texts dangers can mean "imperils."

2. 2
   verbobsolete

   Third-person singular simple present of danger, an obsolete verb.

   Note

   A verb form whose every underlying sense has fallen out of use: to imperil, to run the risk, even to claim liability. Today the work of "imperils" is done by endangers, which takes the same direct object (negligence endangers the crew). Treat dangers as a verb only when reading or imitating period writing. In current prose a reader will take it as the plural noun.

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