Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Capable of compensating automatically and safely for a failure, as of a mechanism or power source.
  • adjective Acting to discontinue a military attack on the occurrence of any of various predetermined conditions.
  • adjective Guaranteed not to fail.
  • noun A fail-safe mechanism.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective That doesn't cause undue damage, in the event of failure.
  • noun A fail-safe device or mechanism.
  • verb To compensate automatically, in the event of a failure.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective eliminating danger by compensating automatically for a failure or malfunction
  • noun a mechanism capable of returning to a safe state in case there is a failure or malfunction
  • adjective guaranteed not to fail

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Cameron made the blowout preventer for the well, a so-called fail-safe device that failed to automatically shut down the well.

    unknown title 2011

  • Cameron made the blowout preventer for the well, a so-called fail-safe device that failed to automatically shut down the well.

    Reuters: Press Release 2011

  • Cameron was the maker of the blowout preventer, the so-called fail-safe device that neglected to automatically shut down the well.

    Reuters: Top News 2011

  • But it is somewhat sobering to see all these so-called 'fail-safe' mechanisms failing.''

    Boston.com Top Stories 2011

  • Cameron was the maker of the blowout preventer, the so-called fail-safe device that neglected to automatically shut down the well.

    Reuters: Top News 2011

  • This is the problem when designing fail-safe systems -- they fail in the most unexpected ways.

    Donald Kaul: The Dangers of Nuclear 'Ice-Nine' Donald Kaul 2011

  • The fail-safe device, the last line of defense against a disaster, wasn't designed to handle a real-world blowout, according to investigators, who called for further study of the devices.

    Device's Design Flaw Let Oil Spill Freely Ben Casselman 2011

  • Once it reached the rig, the gas ignited, setting off a massive explosion that killed the 11 workers and knocked out the rig's power, leaving survivors with no way to trigger the final fail-safe on the blowout preventer, the pipe-cutting shears known as blind-shear rams, while they were still aboard the rig.

    Device's Design Flaw Let Oil Spill Freely Ben Casselman 2011

  • But maintaining a remote fail-safe system is trickier when dealing with employees' devices, which store their own apps, photos and other information.

    Danger-to-Go Shara Tibken 2011

  • This is the problem when designing fail-safe systems -- they fail in the most unexpected ways.

    Donald Kaul: The Dangers of Nuclear 'Ice-Nine' Donald Kaul 2011

Comments

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  • what could go wrong?

    April 3, 2009