hasard (French)
Where does "hasard" come from?
The French word 'hasard' grew from the Arabic term 'al-zahr', meaning 'the flowers,' which originally referred to a decorative floral design on a winning side of a die. This game of dice traveled through Old Spanish into Old French, where the word eventually gained a silent 'h' and a hard 'd' ending influenced by common French suffixes. Over time, the name of this specific game of chance evolved to describe the broader concept of luck, risk, and coincidence.
Full etymology tree
- hasard (French), '(random) chance'
- inherited from hasard (Middle French)
- inherited from hasart (Old French), 'a score of six in a game of hazard'
- borrowed from azar (Old Spanish)
- borrowed from al-zahr (Arabic)
- suffix -art (Old French), 'used to form nouns or adjectives, often with pejorative meanings'
- inherited from *-hard (Frankish)
- inherited from *harduz (Proto-Germanic), 'hard'
- inherited from *kert- (Proto-Indo-European)
- inherited from *harduz (Proto-Germanic), 'hard'
- inherited from *-hard (Frankish)
- borrowed from azar (Old Spanish)
- inherited from hasart (Old French), 'a score of six in a game of hazard'
- inherited from hasard (Middle French)
Ancestors
- hasart (Old French)
- زهر (Arabic)
Cognates and doublets
- zara (Italian)
- azar (Spanish)
Descendants and derived words
- à tout hasard (French)
- au hasard (French)
- hasarder (French)
- hasardeur (French)
- hasardeux (French)
- jeu de hasard (French)
- laisser au hasard (French)
- par hasard (French)
Updated April 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris