險釀?

[Mark Yong]

I just read the following phrase in the headlines of one of the local Malaysian Chinese newspapers:

"示威者叫囂干擾險釀衝突"

I asked a friend what "險釀" meant, and he said "almost causing something (bad) to happen", which I paraphrase in Chinese as roughly "幾乎使到不測事發生".

What puzzles me is how the combination of the words 險 and 釀 can result in such a meaning. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[vampire]

it's short for 險些釀成衝突

險些 = 幾乎, means almost

釀成 = 造成, make something happen

險釀 is not in common use, newspaper headlines use short words like this to meet the character number limit

[skylee]

It means 險些(就)釀成.

12. 險些 (兒) [xian3xie1] (shiaan-shie-'l), adv. phr., almost, nearly: 險些掉下去 nearly fell into (chasm, river, etc.); 險些死了 almost died; 險些釣上來 almost caught the fish.

釀成 (of bad habits, evil tendencies, etc.) suffer to grow or develop;