Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Capable of compensating automatically and safely for a failure, as of a mechanism or power source.
- adj. Acting to discontinue a military attack on the occurrence of any of various predetermined conditions.
- adj. Guaranteed not to fail: "There is no fail-safe mechanism guaranteed either to contain or to restore presidential authority” ( Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)
- n. A fail-safe mechanism.
- v. To compensate automatically for failure.
- v. To render fail-safe: fail-safed the computer against power outages.
Wiktionary
- adj. That doesn't cause undue damage, in the event of failure.
- n. A fail-safe device or mechanism.
- v. To compensate automatically, in the event of a failure.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. eliminating danger by compensating automatically for a failure or malfunction
- n. a mechanism capable of returning to a safe state in case there is a failure or malfunction
- adj. guaranteed not to fail
Examples
“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.”
“But maintaining a remote fail-safe system is trickier when dealing with employees' devices, which store their own apps, photos and other information.”
“This is the problem when designing fail-safe systems -- they fail in the most unexpected ways.”
The Huffington Post: Donald Kaul: The Dangers of Nuclear 'Ice-Nine'
“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.”
The Wall Street Journal: Device's Design Flaw Let Oil Spill Freely
“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.”
The Wall Street Journal: Device's Design Flaw Let Oil Spill Freely
“I sat down with the South African native - who has lived in New York since the late 1970s - to discuss his inspirations for the event launch, his upcoming projects, and his fail-safe secrets to entertaining.”
The Huffington Post: Melissa Berkelhammer: Behind the Scenes With Geoffrey Bradfield
“Modern rail systems are supposed to have fail-safe measures to prevent such occurrences.”
The Wall Street Journal: China Fires Officials After Crash Kills 35
“A sumptuous boar blow-out closes Mr. Greene's account, as if, all other approaches falling short, one fail-safe way to comprehend this beast is to eat him.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fail-safe’.
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From Book - SAT & College Dictionary ...
ebb, exotic, immure, abeyance, panegyric, debonair, protege, dissipate, frantic, penitent, abject, edify and 871 more...
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adjectives
sartorial, saucy, wieldy, wuthering, dilapidated, rough-and-ready, flabbergasted, ravishing, seminal, snooty, galore, scrumptious and 386 more...
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Late Night Double Feature
Films of the Sci-Fi, Horror variety (guilty pleasures included).
zombie, mask, matrix, braindead, house, fly, exorcist, solaris, alien, blob, akira, psycho and 33 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for fail-safe.
strev what could go wrong? Apr 3, 2009