fail-safe

See also: failsafe and fail safe

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: fāl′sāf, IPA^(key): /ˈfeɪlˌseɪf/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Adjective

fail-safe

1. That does not cause undue damage in the event of failure.

   The system is failsafe, because everything is backed up automatically.

2. Designed to shut off for safety if an emergency occurs.
   • 1961 February, “Talking of Trains: Automated trains in New York”, in Trains Illustrated, page 78:

     All equipment is, of course, of "fail-safe" pattern.

Coordinate terms

• fail-deadly
• failsoft

Translations

that does not cause undue damage

• Finnish: vikaturvallinen
• Hungarian: biztonságos (hu), üzembiztos (hu)
• Kyrgyz: ишенимдүү (ky) (işenimdüü), бекем (ky) (bekem)
• Telugu: కట్టుదిట్టమైన (kaṭṭudiṭṭamaina), పాడవని (pāḍavani), చెడిపోని (ceḍipōni)

Noun

fail-safe (plural fail-safes)

1. A device, mechanism or measure designed to make something fail-safe.

Translations

device or mechanism

• Dutch: fouttolerant
• Finnish: turvalaite (device), turvamekanismi (mechanism)
• French: mode dégradé (fr)
• Japanese: フェイルセーフ (feirusēfu)
• Polish: bezpiecznik (pl) m

Verb

fail-safe (third-person singular simple present fail-safes, present participle fail-safing, simple past and past participle fail-safed)

1. To compensate automatically, in the event of a failure.
2. To make a device or mechanism fail-safe, or to add a fail-safe device or mechanism to an existing system.

Alternative forms

• fail safe (with differing inflections)

See also

• foolproof

References

• “fail-safe”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.