The English word "hazard" began life as a game of dice. The Arabic al-zahr meant "the die" (singular of "dice"), and by extension a particular dice game played across the medieval Islamic world. Spanish picked it up as azar, meaning both the die and the chance it represented. Old French borrowed the word as hasard, and English took it from there.
A Game with the Crusaders
The English word seems to have arrived during the Crusades. Returning soldiers had played the dice game in the Levant, and they brought it back along with other novelties: words, weapons, and tastes. By the late 13th century, "hazard" in English meant both the dice game itself and, more loosely, a risky enterprise of any kind.
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Hazard and Craps
The hazard dice game was popular in English taverns from medieval times through the 19th century. Its rules — complex by modern standards, with two dice and several rolling phases — were eventually simplified by French and American players into the modern casino game of craps. The connection is more than thematic: scholars trace the word "craps" itself to the French phrase crabs, the worst possible roll in hazard.
From Dice to Danger
The metaphorical extension of "hazard" — from "a roll of the dice" to "a chance, a risk, a danger" — was established by Shakespeare's time. In Henry V, the king tells his soldiers they have already "hazarded" themselves on the field. By the 19th century the gambling sense had faded almost entirely; the word now means simply "danger" or "obstacle." Golf course designers, who lay out sand bunkers and water features as hazards, are using the older sporting sense of "an obstacle introduced for the sake of the game."