Jeopardy

How to spell jeopardy

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce jeopardy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does jeopardy mean?

1. nounA state of danger, or risk of harm, loss, or failure.

Jeopardy in a sentence

• One careless email put the whole merger in jeopardy.

• Missing the deadline placed her job in jeopardy.

Where does jeopardy come from?

Language of origin: French

Jeopardy comes from the Old French phrase jeu parti, which literally meant a 'divided game' or 'split play', that is, a contest in which the two sides are evenly balanced and the outcome hangs in doubt. That phrase in turn rests on the Latin words iocus, meaning 'a game' or 'a joke', and partitus, meaning 'divided' or 'shared out'. English took the expression in during the 1300s, at first to describe an uncertain or even-chance situation in chess or in gambling, and from there the sense slid toward danger and risk of loss. The slightly odd spelling, with that 'eo' followed by 'pard', is a fossil of the original French two-word phrase squeezed into a single English word, which is exactly why writers hesitate over it. A useful memory hook is that the same Latin iocus that gives us 'jocular' and 'joke' sits quietly at the front of this far more serious word.

How the word is built

• jeo- (from jeu: game, play)
• pard (from parti: divided, split)
• -y (noun-forming ending)