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 afailure .
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
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word fail-safe.
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.
-
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.''
-
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
strev commented on the word fail-safe
what could go wrong?
April 3, 2009