risks

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of risk.

   Investors weigh the risks before putting money into a new company.

   The report listed the main risks of building so close to the river.

   Note

   Only the countable uses of risk can be counted: a particular adverse event that might happen, a kind of loss an insurance policy covers, or a thing judged by how likely it is to cause harm. Risk as probability, or as the size of a possible loss, stays singular. So a writer speaks of the risk of flooding but of the risks of a project. The same spelling serves as the verb's present form.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of risk.

   Anyone who skips the safety check risks a serious accident.

   The company risks losing customers if prices keep rising.

   Note

   Every use of the verb is transitive, so risks always has an object after it. That object can be the bad outcome itself (risks an accident), the thing put in danger (risks his savings), or an action named with -ing (risks losing customers). The last pattern trips learners: the -ing form, not to plus a verb, names the action whose consequences are being chanced.

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