peril

From Middle English peril, from Old French peril, from Latin perīculum. Doublet of periculum.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛɹɪl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛɹəl/
• Rhymes: -ɛɹɪl, -ɛɹəl

peril (countable and uncountable, plural perils)

1. A situation of serious and immediate danger.

   Your life is in peril.

2. Something that causes, contains, or presents danger.

   the perils of the jungle (animals and insects, weather, etc.)

3. (insurance) An event which causes a loss, or the risk of a specific such event.

• danger, hazard, jeopardy, risk, threat
• See also Thesaurus:danger

• imperil
• perilous
• Category English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *per- (risk) not found

peril (third-person singular simple present perils, present participle (US) periling or (UK) perilling, simple past and past participle (US) periled or (UK) perilled)

1. (transitive) To cause to be in danger; to imperil; to risk. [from 16th c.]
   • 1830, Robert Hayne, Speech in the United States Senate:

     And are we, Mr. President, who stood by our country then, who threw open our coffers, who bared our bosoms, who freely perilled all in that conflict, to be reproached with want of attachment to the Union?

   • 1862, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret:

     Remember how much she had perilled for a fine house and gorgeous furniture, for carriages and horses, jewels and laces; and do not wonder if she clings with a desperate tenacity to gauds and gew-gaws, in the hour of her despair.

   • 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter XIV, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC:

     "I will have nothing to do with this matter, whatever it is. Do you think I am going to peril my reputation for you?"

• piler, plier, prile

• perile, periil, perel, peryle, pereyl, parelle, peryl, perell, perill, parell, pereil

From Old French peril, from Latin perīculum.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɛril/, /pɛˈriːl/, /ˈpɛrəl/, /ˈparəl/

peril (plural perilles)

1. Danger, risk, peril; something that is potentially harmful or risky:
   1. A location where danger, risk, or peril is present or likely.
   2. A thing or enterprise which creates peril; anything which creates or which is of peril.
   3. Sinfulness; religious threat or danger.
2. (Late Middle English) Bad fortune; unluckiness or mischance.

• perilous
• perilously

• English: peril
• Scots: peril

• “perī̆l, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 15 July 2018.

From Latin perīculum.

peril oblique singular, m (oblique plural periz or perilz, nominative singular periz or perilz, nominative plural peril)

1. peril; hazard; danger

• → Middle English: peril
  • English: peril
  • Scots: peril
• French: péril
• Norman: péthi (Jersey)