Definition of "risk-free" [risk-free]

• Free from or devoid of risk; safe. (adjective)

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• "For decades, the interest rate on American debt has been known as the "risk-free rate", because a US default was as close to impossible as anyone in financial markets could imagine, and all other bonds were priced relative to America's."
• "While governments grapple with ballooning debt and banks manage exposure to ailing sovereign assets, once classified as risk-free, so corporations await the dearth of funding that will inevitably result from the latest bout of global economic uncertainty."
• "The pension payments are essentially risk-free - the government is in many cases required by law to make the - so they argue that the appropriate discount rate is the so-called risk-free rate, the rate on Treasury bonds, considered one of the safest investments, which is currently between 4 and 5 percent."