DANGEROUS

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm

Example:

a life-threatening disease

Synonyms:

dangerous; grave; grievous; life-threatening; serious; severe

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

critical (being in or verging on a state of crisis or emergency)

Derivation:

dangerousness (the quality of not being safe)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Involving or causing danger or risk; liable to hurt or harm

Example:

unemployment reached dangerous proportions

Synonyms:

dangerous; unsafe

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

breakneck (moving at very high speed)

chanceful; chancy; dicey; dodgy (of uncertain outcome; especially fraught with risk)

desperate ((of persons) dangerously reckless or violent as from urgency or despair)

hazardous; risky; wild (involving risk or danger)

insidious (intended to entrap)

mordacious (biting or given to biting)

on the hook (caught in a difficult or dangerous situation)

parlous; perilous; precarious; touch-and-go (fraught with danger)

self-destructive; suicidal (dangerous to yourself or your interests)

treacherous; unreliable (dangerously unstable and unpredictable)

Also:

insecure; unsafe (lacking in security or safety)

vulnerable (susceptible to attack)

Antonym:

safe (free from danger or the risk of harm)

Derivation:

danger (a dangerous place)

danger (a cause of pain or injury or loss)

dangerousness (the quality of not being safe)

Credits

Context examples:

"Halting sneezing via blocking the nostrils and mouth is a dangerous manoeuvre, and should be avoided," caution the authors.

(Blocking A Sneeze, Man Ruptures Throat, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Researchers from the University of Granada and RMIT University in Melbourne have developed personalised and low-cost wearable ultraviolet (UV) sensors that warn users when their exposure to the sun has become dangerous.

(New wristband provides personalised and real-time tracking of UV exposure, University of Granada)

Eventually, mimicking the processes initiated by the microbiome may allow clinicians to accelerate wound healing and prevent dangerous infections, the researchers note.

(Scientists find microbes on the skin of mice promote tissue healing, immunity, National Institutes of Health)

This type of stroke, though less common than an ischemic stroke, is harder to treat and thus more dangerous to the person experiencing it.

(Low Levels of Bad Cholesterol Increase Stroke Risk, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Such information could be invaluable in helping inform measures to reduce people’s exposure to potentially dangerous carcinogens.

(‘Fingerprint database’ could help scientists to identify new cancer culprits, University of Cambridge)

It was a very fierce storm; the sea broke strange and dangerous.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Your memoirs will draw to an end, Watson, upon the day that I crown my career by the capture or extinction of the most dangerous and capable criminal in Europe.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That is a dangerous argument my dear Watson.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I tell you that he is a clever and dangerous man.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Unstable angina is the most dangerous. It does not follow a pattern and can happen without physical exertion.