Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Risky |
RiskyAdjective1. Involving risk or danger; "skydiving is a hazardous sport"; "extremely risky going out in the tide and fog"; "a venturesome journey in wintertime"; "a venturous enterprise". 2. Not financially safe or secure; "a bad investment"; "high risk investments"; "anything that promises to pay too much can't help being risky"; "speculative business enterprises". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "risky" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1827. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Risk is the potential future harm that may arise from some present action. It is often combined or confused with the probability of an event which is seen as undesirable. Usually the probability and some assessment of expected harms must be combined into a believable scenario combining risk, regret and reward probabilities into expected value. There are many informal methods which are used to assess (or to "measure" although it is not usually possible to directly measure) risk, and (for some applications) formal methods such as value at risk.
Risk is different from threat
In scenario analysis "risk" is distinct from "threat." "Threat" refers to a very low-probability but high-impact event - which cannot typically be assigned a probability in a risk assessment because it has never occurred, and for which no effective preventive measure is available. The difference is most clearly illustrated by the precautionary principle which seeks to reduce threat by requiring it to be reduced to a set of well-defined risks before an action, project, innovation or experiment is allowed to proceed.
A more specific example is the preparedness of the United States of America prior to the devastating attack on September 11th, 2001. Although the Central Intelligence Agency had often warned of a "clear and present danger" of using planes as weapons, this was considered a threat not a risk. Accordingly, no comprehensive scenarios of probabilities and counter-measures were ever prepared for the type of attack that occurred. In general, a threat cannot be characterized as a risk without at least one specific incident wherein the threat can be said to have "realized". From that point, there it at least some basis to characterize a probability, e.g. "in the entire history of air travel, X flights have led to 1 incident of..."
Professions and Governments manage Risk
Means of measuring and assessing risk vary widely across different professions-- indeed means of doing so may define different professions, e.g. a doctor manages medical risk, a civil engineer manages risk of structural failure, etc.
A professional code of ethics is usually focused on risk assessment and mitigation (by the professional on behalf of client, public, society or life in general).
Some theorists of political science, notably Carol Moore and Jane Jacobs, emphasize that smaller political units and careful separation of the roles of regulator and trader can improve professional ethics and subordinate them to uniform risk limits that would apply to a particular locale, e.g. an entire urban area.
The political ideal of bioregional democracy arose in part in response to these ideals, and problems of professional jargons and associations alienating power from real people living in real places.
"A profession by definition is in a conflict of interest with respect to the risk passed on to its clients." - Steven Rapaport.
Risk as Regret?
Risk has no one definition, but some theorists, notably Ron Dembo, have defined quite general methods to assess risk as an expected after-the-fact level of regret. Such methods have been uniquely successful in limiting interest rate risk in financial markets. Financial markets are considered to be a proving ground for general methods of risk assessment.
However, these methods are also hard to understand. The mathematical difficulties interfere with other social goods such as disclosure, valuation and transparency.
In particular, it is often difficult to tell if such financial instruments are "hedging" (decreasing measurable risk by giving up certain windfall gains) or "gambling" (increasing measurable risk and exposing the investor to catastrophic loss in pursuit of very high windfalls that increase expected value).
As regret measures rarely reflect actual human risk-aversion, it is difficult to determine if the outcomes of such transactions will be satisfactory.
In financial markets one may needs to measure credit risk, information timing and source risk, probability model risk, and legal risk if there are regulatory or civil actions taken as a result of some "investor's regret".
Tough Choices
Financial markets illustrate a more general problem in defining and assessing risk-- the ways that different types of risk combine.
In can be hard to see how the relative risks from different sources should affect one's decisions. For example, when treating a disease a doctor might have the choice of either using a drug that had a high probablility of causing minor side effects, or carrying out an operation with a low probability of causing very severe damage.
According to the regret theory, the only way to resolve such dilemmas might be to find out more about the patient's life and ambitions. If, for instance, the patient's greatest desire centered on raising children, one might prefer the drug even if it limited their mobility or physical capacity somewhat. However, if the patient has already risked their own life several times in extreme sporting events, the decision to do so one more time and recover full capacities may be far preferable.
This highlights a major problem in professional ethics: knowing when the cognitive bias of the professional versus the client (or "patient") must dominate, and what choices each is best able to make.
Framing
Framing is a fundamental problem with all forms of risk assessment. The above examples: body, threat, price of life, professional ethics and regret show that the risk adjustor or assessor often faces serious conflict of interest, The assessor also faces cognitive bias and cultural bias, and cannot always be trusted to avoid all moral hazards. This represents a risk in itself, which grows as the assessor is less like the client.
For instance, an extremely disturbing event that all participants wish not to happen again may be ignored in analysis despite the fact it has occurred and has a nonzero probability. Or, an event that everyone agrees is inevitable may be ruled out of analysis due to greed or an unwillingness to admit that it is believed to be inevitable.
These human tendencies to error and wishful thinking often affect even the most rigorous applications of the scientific method and are a major concern of the philosophy of science.
But all decision-making under uncertainty must consider cognitive bias, cultural bias, and notational bias: No group of people assessing risk is immune to "groupthink": acceptance of obviously-wrong answers simply because it is socially painful to disagree.
One effective way to solve framing problems in risk assessment or measurement (although some argue that risk cannot be measured, only assessed) is to ensure that scenarios, as a strict rule, must include unpopular and perhaps unbelievable (to the group) high-impact low-probability "threat" and/or "vision" events.
This permits participants in risk assessment to raise others' fears or personal ideals by way of completeness, without others concluding that they have done so for any reason other than satisfying this formal requirement.
For example, an intelligence analyst with a scenario for an attack by hijacking might have been able to insert mitigation for this threat into the U.S. budget. It would be admitted as a formal risk with a nominal low probability. This would permit coping with threats even though the threats were dismissed by the analyst's superiors.
Even small investments in diligence on this matter might have disrupted or prevented the attack-- or at least "hedged" against the risk that an Administration might be mistaken.
Insurance
Although military decision making tends to dominate risk theory, its most sophisticated daily practice is in the insurance industry,
The insurers have well-defined roles of actuary, underwriter, agent, auditor and adjustor. Each of these is an assessor in somewhat different circumstances or stages of the insuring, reinsuring, adjustment, recovery and claims payment processes.
Military leads Insurance leads Finance leads Government
In very broad terms, military and insurance decision making is quite a bit more formal and sophisticated than equivalent processes in financial markets - the regret theory has done much to equalize this by incorporating many common military and insurance practices, and putting formal trappings on them.
Generally, the military, insurance, financial, and other professional fields must work through methods before they become prevalent in government policy.
Risk assessments with differing ways of determining public concerns are a major concern of political parties. These parties compete to impose these views on foreign policy, the judicial system, law enforcement, and in Legislation.
The techniques flow slowly from one field to the next. To illustrate the long timelines involved, scenario analysis matured during Cold War confrontations between major powers, notably the USA and USSR, but was not widespread in insurance circles until the 1970s when major oil tanker disasters forced a more comprehensive foresight, It entered finance until the 1980s when financial derivatives proliferated. It did not reach most professions in general until the 1990s when personal computers proliferated.
Governments are apparently only now learning to use sophisticated risk methods, most obviously to set standards for environmental regulation, e.g. "pathway analysis" as practiced by the US EPA.
Civilization as Risk Reduction?
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them." - Alfred North Whitehead.
If Whitehead is right, then the perfect civilization is the perfect risk reduction algorithm-- capable of warning us long in advance of forseeable problems, and assuring us that surprises were unforseeable in principle.
Unfortunately, this vision of a risk-reducing symbiote or prosthetic for human judgement remains elusive, fragmented, and unlikely to be realized.
Fear as Intuitive Risk Assessment?
For the time being, we must rely on our own fear and hesitation to keep us out of the most profoundly unknown circumstances.
In "The Gift of Fear", Gavin de Becker argues that "True fear is a gift." (from book jacket) "It is a survival signal that sounds only in the presence of danger. Yet unwarranted fear has assumed a power over us that it holds over no other creature on Earth. It need not be this way."
Risk could be said to be the way we collectively measure and share this "true fear" - a fusion of rational doubt, irrational fear, and a set of unquantified biases from our own experience.
The field of behavioral finance focuses on human risk aversion, asymmetric regret, and other ways that human financial behavior varies from what analysts call "rational."
See also Safety engineering, Civil defense
Risk is the name of a popular board game and an album by Megadeth.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Risk."
Synonyms: RiskySynonyms: bad (adj), hazardous (adj), high-risk (adj), insecure (adj), speculative (adj), venturesome (adj), venturous (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Intention | Unforeseeable, unpredictable, chancy, risky, speculative, dicey. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Risky |
| English words defined with "risky": gamble ♦ Hazardable, hazardous ♦ Riskful, riskily ♦ speculation ♦ venture, venturesome, venturous. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "risky": Fox. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "risky": Riskful. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Don't you think its a little risky for some R&R (Apocalypse Now; writing credit: John Milius ; Francis Ford Coppola) It's too risky for a white lady, Miss Julie (Jezebel; writing credit: Owen Davis; Clements Ripley) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Risky Business (1939) The Risky Road (1918) Risky Business (1983) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Titus Maccius Plautus | The poor man who enters into a partnership with one who is rich makes a risky venture. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Avoid risky foods and drinks. (references) | |
Drug users also may become involved in risky sexual behavior. (references) | ||
Several programs were deemed effective for risky sexual behavior. (references) | ||
Business | This segment of the market is generally considered to be too risky and too small. (references) | |
Approximately 3,671 municipalities are considered either high-risk or moderately risky areas. (references) | ||
Although considered highly risky, the RFE’s forestry sector has attracted U.S. investment into several projects. (references) | ||
Economic History | Russia | Banks still perceive commercial lending as risky, and some banks are inexperienced with assessing credit risk. (references) |
Lithuania | Unsustainable deposit interest payments, inadequate banking laws and regulations as well as risky lending practices and insider trading were the causes of the crisis. (references) | |
China | Investment is risky, however, due to the lack of clearly defined regulatory powers over the industry, an effective Chinese certificate authentication system, secure and reliable on-line settlement system, and an efficient physical delivery system. (references) | |
Political Economy | India | As a result, India's credit rating suffered and the cost of borrowing for the business community went up. India may have over-valued its market potential in this situation, because other attractive and less risky opportunities for foreign investors exist. (references) |
Trade | Australia | This is a very secure form of payment and is used frequently for unknown clients, or those perceived to be risky accounts. (references) |
Mexico | It is not at all unusual, and experience indicates that, with prudent credit review practices, open account sales in Mexico need not be inherently risky. (references) | |
Travel | Kenya | Camping alone is always risky. (references) |
Nigeria | Street lighting is insufficient and often out of order, making night driving all the more risky. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Risky" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 95.24% of the time. "Risky" is used about 671 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 95.24% | 639 | 10,192 |
| Noun (proper) | 4.76% | 32 | 61,292 |
| Total | 100.00% | 671 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "risky": risky asset ♦ risky investments ♦ risky venture. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "risky": risky-shift. | |
Ending with "risky": non-risky. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "risky"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | i rrezikshëm (breakneck, critical, dangerous, endangering, forbidding, hairy, hazardous, high risk, malign, nasty, parlous, perilous, pestilent, risque, touch and go, unchancy, unsafe). (various references) | |
Arabic | محفوف بالمخاطر (adventurous, chancy, perilous, unhealthy), معرض للخطر (exposed, insecure), مجازف (adventurous, foolhardy, hazardous, rash, reckless), خطير (acute, critical, dangerous, eventful, grave, grievous, hazardous, heavy, important, irresistible, momentous, redoubtable, risque, serious, severe, significant, ticklish, unsafe, weighty), خطر (adventurous, advise, awkward, challenge, come, critical, danger, dangerous, embargo, fear, give smb. notice, hazard, importance, jeopardy, parlous, peril, perilous, poisonous, prohibition, proscription, risk, unhealthy). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | рискован (adventurous, chanceful, chancy, hazardous, insecure, parlous, perilous, precarious, queasy, speculative, sporting, touch and go, unsound, venturesome), опасен (adventurous, awkward, breakneck, dangerous, hazardous, hot, insecure, lively, parlous, perilous, pestiferous, precarious, redoubtable, rocky, rum, rummy, slippery, slippy, trappy, ugly, unchancy, unsafe, unsure, virulent, volatile, warm), несигурен (build on sand, chancy, dangerous, disputable, dubious, equivocal, faltering, halting, insecure, irresolute, long, pendulous, precarious, problematic, queasy, rocky, shaky, slippy, suspensive, tentative, top heavy, tottery, treacherous, uncertain, uneasy, unreliable, unresolved, unsafe, unsettled, unsound, unsteady, unsure, untrustworthy, variable, versatile, wonky). (various references) | |
Chinese | 危险 (Danger, Dangerous, Hazard, Peril, Perilous). (various references) | |
Czech | riskantní (adventurous, chancy, dangerous, Dicey, Dickey, dodgy, hazardous, precarious, touch and go, unsound), odvážný (audacious, brave, courageous, daring, fearless, great-hearted, high-spirited, lion-hearted, manful, mettlesome, perilous, plucky, soldierly, spunky, stalwart, venturesome), nebezpeèný (dangerous, grave, hairy, hazardous, perilous, ugly, unsafe), hazardní (hazardous, reckless, Venturous). (various references) | |
Danish | risikabel (adventurous, hazardous). (various references) | |
Dutch | riskant (adventurous, hazardous), gewaagd (adventurous, hazardous). (various references) | |
Esperanto | riska (hazardous). (various references) | |
Farsi | پرمخاطره (Precarious, Venturesome), ریسک دار. (various references) | |
Finnish | vaarallinen (critical, dangerous, hazardous, perilous), uskalias (audacious, bold, daring, hazardous, venturesome), arveluttava (doubtful, precarious, suspicious), arveluttaa (doubtful, precarious, suspicious). (various references) | |
French | hasardeux. (various references) | |
Frisian | noedlik (adventurous, hazardous). (various references) | |
German | riskant (bold, chancy, dangerous, Dicey, dodgy, hazardous, precarious, touchy, venturous, wildcat), geheuer (harmless, safe). (various references) | |
Greek | κινδυνώδησ (dangerous, perilous), ριψοκίνδυνος (dangerous), επικίνδυνοσ (dangerous, desperate, hazardous, nasty, perilous, unsafe, wild cat). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מסוכן (dangerous, fell, hazardous, mean, perilous, precarious, unhealthy, unsafe). (various references) | |
Hungarian | kockázatos (chancy, dicey, endangering, fraught with risk, hairy, hazardous, perilous, speculative, sticky, touch and go, unsafe), veszélyes (baleful, dangerous, fraught with danger, have teeth in it, hazardous, insecure, malignant, nasty, parlous, perilous, sticky, unsafe), rizikós (dicey, sticky). (various references) | |
Indonesian | berbahaya (dangerous, harmful, hazardous, noxious). (various references) | |
Italian | rischioso (chancy, dicey, hazardous, touch and go, venturesome, venturous). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 際どい (close, dangerous, delicate, hazardous, suggestive), 命懸け (desperate, life & death, risking one's life). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | きわどい (close, dangerous, delicate, hazardous, suggestive), いのちがけ (desperate, life and death, risking one's life), け"の" (dangerous, insecure). (various references) | |
Korean | 위험한 (Dangerous, hazardous, Perilous, speculative, unsafe). (various references) | |
Manx | thallooinagh (agrarian, earth-born, earthly, earthy, terrestrial, territorial), gaueagh (dangerous, hazardous, jeopardous, venturesome), cryggilagh. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | iskyray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | pouco conveniente (unbeseeming, unchristian, unmeet), perigoso (adventure, adventurous, breakneck, chanceful, critical, dangerous, harmful, hazardous, hot, insecure, parlous, perilous, precarious, touch and go, touch-and-go, ugly, unchancy, unsafe, venturesome), indecente (bawdy, indecent, indecorous, nasty, obscene, ribald, scurrilous, unseemly), incerto (borderline, chancy, double-minded, doubtful, doubting, dubious, fitful, floating, hazardous, incalculable, inconstant, insecure, kittle, lubricous, precarious, problematic, questionable, shaky, shifting, slippery, slippy, tottery, touch and go, touch-and-go, unassured, uncertain, undecided, unreliable, unsettled, unstable, unsure), escabroso (fruity, scabrous), de caráter duvidoso, arriscado (audacious, breakneck, chanceful, dangerous, daring, hazardous, intrepid, perilous, precarious, scabrous, speculative, touch-and-go, ugly, unsafe, venturesome). (various references) | |
Romanian | riscat (parlous, precarious, venturesome, wildcat), riscant (chancy, dangerous, dare devil, hazardous, reckless, temerarious, unsafe, venturesome, wildcat), scabros (nauseating, scabrous), periculos (awkward, baleful, breakneck, dangerous, dangerously, grave, parlous, perilous, perniciously, trappy, unsafe, venturesome, wildcat), hazardat (hazardous, hazardously, wildcat), îndrãzneţ (assuming, audacious, bold, boldly, cheeky, cocky, courageous, daring, fearless, gallant, high-spirited, intrepid, manful, nervy, overdaring, reckless, venturesome). (various references) | |
Russian | рискованный (adventurous, buccaneering, chanceful, chancy, dangerous, dicey, hazardous, perilous, risque, speculative, touch and go, touch-and-go). (various references) | |
Scottish | cunnartach (dangerous). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | rizičan (perilous, wildcat), riskantan (chancy, hazardous, kittle). (various references) | |
Spanish | arriesgado (adventuresome, adventurous, chancy, dangerous, devil may care, hazardous, perilous, unsafe). (various references) | |
Swedish | vansklig (difficult, hazardous, Kittle, precarious), riskabel (desperate, perilous, touch and go, venturesome, Venturous), äventyrlig (adventurous, hazardous, venturesome). (various references) | |
Thai | เป็นการเสี่ยง, เป็นอันตราย. (various references) | |
Turkish | rizikolu (daring, wildcat), riskli (adventurous, chancy, dangerous, Dicey, dodgy, forbidding, hairy, hazardous, not healthy, precarious, touch and go, unsure, venturesome, wildcat), terbiyesiz (bad, blackguard, blackguardly, broad, caddish, churlish, coarse, coarse grained, dirty, graceless, ill bred, ill mannered, immodest, immoral, impertinent, impolite, improper, impudent, indelicate, inelegant, insolent, mannerless, naughty, ribald, risque, rude, scabrous, shameless, uncultured, underbred, undressed, unmannerly, unpolished), tehlikeli (adventurous, breakneck, danger, dangerous, daring, forbidding, hairy, hazardous, noxious, parlous, perilous, pestilent, pestilential, touch and go, unsafe, venturesome, wildcat), müstehcen (bawdy, blue, dirty, filthy, gross, hard core, kinky, loathsome, nasty, obscene, off color, off colour, pornographic, racy, raw, ribald, ripe, risque, rough, salacious, shocking, smutty, suggestive, unprintable), açık saçık (bawdy, blue, dirty, disorderly, feelthy, filthy, foul, girlie, hard core, immodest, immodestly dressed, improper, indecent, lewd, obscene, off color, off colour, pornographic, racy, raw, ripe, risque, rough, salacious, salty, scabrous, shocking, smutty, spicy). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | сумнівний (apocryphal, doubtful, dubious, equivocal, indeterminate, naughty, off color, off colour, precarious, problematic, problematical, queer, shady, uncertain), ризиковано (naughtily), ризикований (adventurous, chanceful, chancy, critical, hazardous, naughty, off color, off colour, perilous, precarious, risque, touch and go, touchy, venturesome, wildcat). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | mạo hiểm đấy rủi ro, liều (devil-may-care, hazardous, precarious, rash, venture, venturesome, wildcat). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "risky": frisky. (additional references) | |
| |
"Risky" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Briskey, brisky, fisky, Gretsky, Raisky, Rajska, Rajski, Raska, Ratky, Razuki, resk, Retsky, Reysbye, Ribsgy, ricky, Rikkyo, rikyu, rinky, rirk, Risak, Risby, risc, Risca, risch, risck, Risco, riske, riszk, rizy, roissy, rsk, ruski, Russkaya, Russki, russkii, Russkoye, Rusuku, wisky. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "risky" (pronounced ri"skē) |
| 5 | r i" s k ē | frisky. |
| 4 | -i" s k ē | whiskey, whisky. |
| 3 | -s k ē | kolinski, husky, Muskie, musky, pesky. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "i-k-r-s-y" | |
-1 letter: irks, kirs, kris, risk. | |
-2 letters: irk, kir, sir, ski, sky, sri. | |
-3 letters: is, si. | |
| Words containing the letters "i-k-r-s-y" | |
+1 letter: frisky, kyries, smirky. | |
+2 letters: briskly, rickeys, riskily, shrieky, tricksy. | |
+3 letters: friskily, hayricks, hydroski, rakishly, sickerly, skittery, skydiver, skywrite, snickery, sparkily, whiskery. | |
+4 letters: euryokies, hydroskis, irksomely, kailyards, karyotins, kryolites, kryoliths, skydivers, skywriter, skywrites, teriyakis, valkyries, walkyries, yakitoris, yardstick. | |
+5 letters: brickyards, freakishly, hyperlinks, prankishly, skylarking, skywriters, skywriting, skywritten, strikingly, trickishly, yardsticks. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Familiar 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
