What does jeoparded mean?
Jeoparded is the past tense and past participle of jeopardize, meaning to put a person, thing, or outcome at risk of harm, defeat, or loss. It is especially common in formal and professional contexts, including news reporting, politics, business, and law. A sentence such as "The leak jeopardized years of negotiations" emphasizes that the danger has already arisen, even though the threatened harm may not have occurred. The word is often stronger and more consequential than the general phrase "put at risk," conveying a serious possibility of significant damage. It can describe physical danger, as in threatening a person's safety, or abstract consequences, such as endangering a career, reputation, investigation, or agreement. As a past-tense form, it is frequently used in headlines and retrospective accounts of events, while the base form is more common when describing a general risk or an action that is still to come.
verbTo put someone or something at risk of being harmed, defeated, or lost. It is the past tense and past participle of jeopardize.
- To expose a person, thing, or outcome to danger or the possibility of harm or loss.
"A late goal by the visitors jeoparded the team's championship hopes."
"The witness's decision to remain silent jeoparded the investigation."
"She refused to disclose the source because doing so would have jeoparded his safety."
To jeopardize something is to put its future at risk before any harm has actually occurred.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does jeoparded come from?
The word comes through Middle English from Old French jeupard, an adjective meaning "in danger," which in turn was based on a phrase referring to a person between two sets of chess pieces and therefore in danger of being captured. The modern family of forms in English developed from the noun jeopardy, whose historical sense was danger or peril. The spelling with z reflects a later association with the modern French phrase jeu partid, although the two forms came to be treated as etymologically distinct in English.
Related word forms
How jeoparded is actually used
This form is used when speaking about an event or decision that has already placed someone or something at risk. In formal writing, the active present tense is often preferred: "The decision to remain silent jeopardized the investigation."