hazarding

Pluralhazardings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of hazard.

   Critics accused the analyst of hazarding bold predictions without any evidence.

   Hazarding her entire savings on the new business felt reckless but exciting.

   Note

   The -ing form carries both uses of the verb. One is staking something on chance, as in hazarding one's savings. The other is venturing something said, as in hazarding a prediction. As a gerund it keeps its verbal grammar and takes its object directly: hazarding her entire savings. The same spelling also works as a countable noun with its own plural, hazardings, for a guess put forward.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   Something ventured or risked; a guess or speculation offered without certainty.

   Her hazarding about the outcome proved surprisingly accurate.

   The detective dismissed the reporter's hazarding as mere speculation.

   Similarguess, speculation, conjecture, guesswork

   Note

   Here the act of venturing becomes the thing ventured, and it takes a plural, hazardings. Lionel Britton's Hunger and Love (1931) sets "the cloudy hazardings of Pythagoras" beside "the vague speculations of Democritus." That pairing shows its usual company: half-formed theories waiting to be made precise. Unlike a plain guess, it keeps a trace of the verb's risk. It names an idea put at stake.

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