Gefährdet

Gefährdet is a German adjective meaning in danger, at risk, or endangered. It is the past participle form of gefährden used adjectivally and can describe people, objects, or biological entities when they face a threat or decline.

In usage, gefährdet can function attributively before a noun or predicatively. Examples include gefährdete Arten (endangered species), gefährdetes Ökosystem (threatened ecosystem), or eine gefährdete Art. With definite articles the endings reflect gender, number, and case, as in das gefährdete Tier or die gefährdeten Arten; with an indefinite article one would say ein gefährdetes Tier. When no article is present, strong endings are used, as in gefährdete Arten.

In conservation and scientific contexts, gefährdet denotes a significant risk to the persistence of a species or habitat. It is commonly used to describe taxa facing threats such as habitat loss, fragmentation, pollution, or overexploitation. The term is roughly equivalent to the English "threatened" or "endangered," though exact meaning can vary with context and authority, and more severe statuses may be described in German as vom Aussterben bedroht (literally “facing extinction”).

Etymology-wise, gefährdet derives from Gefahr (danger) plus the suffix -det, related to the formation of adjectives from verbs in German. It shares semantic kinship with related terms such as bedroht (threatened) and Gefahr (danger), and appears frequently in discussions of biodiversity, environmental policy, and risk assessment.

See also: gefährden, Gefahr, bedrohen, Risikostatus, Rote Liste gefährdeter Arten.