hazards

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of hazard.

   The safety inspector identified several hazards in the old factory.

   Sailors must watch for hazards hidden beneath the water's surface.

   Note

   A plural that counts things: the sand and water traps on a golf course, the obstacles a driver must steer around, the winning and losing hazards of billiards. When hazard means danger in general, it often stays singular and uncountable instead. The same spelling also serves as the verb's present form, and among drivers it can mean the flashing warning lights.

2. 2
   nounabbreviationellipsis

   Ellipsis of hazard lights.

   He flicked on the hazards and pulled onto the shoulder.

   The taxi sat with its hazards blinking outside the hotel entrance.

   Note

   Drivers' shorthand: hazard lights drops its noun, and the plural ending moves onto the modifier. The word stays plural in use. You put the hazards on, and they are flashing, so it takes a plural verb. Context does the disambiguating. Beside a stopped car, it means the blinking lights, not the dangers on the road.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of hazard.

   The analyst hazards a prediction about next year's housing market.

   Whenever the topic turns to politics, she hazards an opinion.

   Note

   The verb behind this form has two shades. One is putting something at stake, as when someone hazards their savings. The other is offering something tentatively: a guess, a prediction, an answer one is not sure of. In both it takes a direct object. The risk lies in what is put forward, not in the person who does it.

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