Jeopardise or jeopardize?
In American English write jeopardize; in British and Commonwealth English, jeopardise. jeopardise is a verb meaning “Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of jeopardize”; jeopardize is a verb meaning “To put in jeopardy, to threaten”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) jeopardize is about 4.9 times as common as jeopardise.
What is the difference between jeopardise and jeopardize?
| jeopardise | jeopardize | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | verb |
| Meaning | USTo put in jeopardy, to threaten | |
| Example | none recorded | After having an affair with a junior, her chances of promotion were seriously jeopardized |
| Forms | jeopardises, jeopardising, jeopardised | jeopardizes, jeopardizing, jeopardized |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈd͡ʒɛp.ə.dʌɪz/ /ˈd͡ʒɛp.ɚ.daɪz/ /ˈd͡ʒep.ə.dɑez/ |
| Region | UK | US |
| In writing | about once in every 4 million words | 1.3 times per million words |
Sources: jeopardise and jeopardize in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of jeopardise and jeopardize
jeopardize
- 1
USTo put in jeopardy, to threaten
After having an affair with a junior, her chances of promotion were seriously jeopardized
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, jeopardise or jeopardize?
jeopardise appears about once in every 4 million words; jeopardize 1.3 times per million words.
jeopardise about once in every 4 million wordsjeopardize 1.3 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search jeopardise vs jeopardize?
“jeopardise vs jeopardize” is searched about 10 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.