Sentence:  With curiosity and elan , he explored every inch of glen , beach and burn , once stranding himself for hours on a ledge high up a sheer seventy-foot cliff and waiting with calm faith to be rescued by Maxwell , who nearly <WSD>lost</WSD> his life in doing so . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  fail to keep or to maintain; cease to have, either physically or in an abstract sense