Meaning of “At All Hazards” phrase of Idiom, definition and synonyms use in sentence.

At All Hazards

When we say that we will undertake a certain venture “at all hazards,” we mean that we shall be prepared to stake. all we have on the risk of defeat and consequent total loss.

Soldiers and sailors, it has been remarked in other notes, have been responsible for the introduction into our language of many words: Some of these words were coined from the faulty pronunciation, on one side or the other, of a foreign word. Sometimes the word has its origin in another word, with an entirely different meaning, the change being due to gradual corruption. Soldiers are certainly responsible for the English word “hazard,” which is the name of a game of dice, which game is governed by such arbitrary rules as to make the chances complicated; therefore the risks are comparatively great.

William, Archbishop of Tyre, who was contemporary with Richard the Lionhearted, and wrote an important history of the Crusades in the Holy Land, says that the game took its name from a castle called “Asart” (or “Hasart”). Margoliouth, the famous Oriental scholar, has since identified the place by its Arab name: “Ain Zarba.” Whatever its real name, the local pronunciation would be something near enough for the soldiers to understand as “Haiard.” As the game was invented while the fortress was under siege, it naturally became known by the local name. “Let’s play `hazard,’ ” someone would say, when the soldiers had moved far from the spot, during the course of the war, indicating a wish to play the game they used to play at Hasart castle.

Certain it is that a game which in Medizval Latin was called “Azardum,” and in Modern Italian “azzardo,” did come into being around that period; for numerous refer-ences to it are found in works of the early 4th century. Thus Wyclif (Works) writes of “nyce plaies at tables, cheese and hasard.”