venture

venture vb Venture, hazard, risk, chance, jeopardize, endanger, imperil can all mean to expose to the chance of being unsuccessful, lost, or injured.

Venture implies a daring to stake something (as the success of an action or undertaking, one's life, or one's property)

on the chance of getting an advantage or gain whether great or small; the term implies only the chances taken and the contingencies foreseen and does not, apart from the context, indicate its outcome

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he determined to venture his life and his fortunes for the cause of freedom

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you have deeply ventured; but all must do so who would greatly win— Byron

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But venture is often used in a weakened sense to mean little more than dare or, sometimes, attempt

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imagine the fate of a university don of 1860, or 1870, or 1880, or even 1890 who had ventured to commend Leaves of Grass to the young gentlemen— Mencken

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his class fellows were all rather gloomily polite to him, and one or two ventured awkward words of condolence— Archibald Marshall

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Hazard usually implies the putting of something to the chance of losing it; the term suggests more uncertainty or precariousness than venture and less hope of a favorable outcome and is often used in place of venture because of this implication

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men that hazard all do it in hope of fair advantages— Shak.

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his own possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded for Lucie and her child, without a moment's demur— Dickens

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Like venture, hazard is also often used in a much weaker sense but it comes closer to dare than to attempt

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sometimes as he hunted he got a glimpse of the giraffe moving through the bush, but was never near enough to hazard a shot— Cloete

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no Elizabethan dramatist offers greater temptation: to the scholar, to hazard conjecture of fact; and to the critic, to hazard conjecture of significance— T. S. Eliot

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Risk carries a still stronger implication of exposure to real dangers and of taking actual chances

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Captain Cook had sailed straight through the middle of the group, not risking a landing because of the fierce aspect of the natives— Heiser

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Chance may suggest a trusting to luck and a sometimes irresponsible disregarding of the risks involved in an action or procedure

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decided to withdraw from Kentucky rather than chance defeat in enemy territory— Hay

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I'll chance it, if it kills me

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Jeopardize carries further the implication of exposure to dangers; it implies not only that they are a constant threat but that the odds in one's favor are equally or even unfavorably balanced with those against one

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found it difficult to steer a course that should not jeopardize either his loyalty or his honesty— Sidney Lee

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no traveler from abroad, however fair-minded, could tell the truth about us without jeopardizing his life, liberty, and reputation— Brooks

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Endanger and imperil both stress exposure to dangers or perils, and do not in themselves throw emphasis upon a taking of chances. Imperil may imply more certainty or more imminence to the predicted risk than endanger but the two words are often used interchangeably without significant loss

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not so great a wind as to endanger us— Defoe

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condemned the abolitionists as agitators who actually endangered the cause of freedom— Cole

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a jungle of aggressive power politics which imperils internal reconversion, the healing of the wounds of war, and the creation of the political apparatus necessary for one world— Mark Starr

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new technical processes and devices litter the countryside with waste and refuse, contaminate water and air, imperil wildlife and man and endanger the balance of nature itself— Kennedy

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