unsafe

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʌnˈseɪf/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪf

Etymology 1

From un- (not) +‎ safe.

Adjective

unsafe (comparative more unsafe or unsafer, superlative most unsafe or unsafest)

1. Not safe (various senses); dangerous.
   • 2015 October, Luis Mastrangelo et al., “Use at your own risk: the Java unsafe API in the wild”, in ACM SIGPLAN Notices, volume 50, number 10, →DOI:

     For much the same reasons that safe languages are preferred over unsafe languages, these powerful---but unsafe---capabilities in Java should be restricted.

   • 2020 May 20, Richard Clinnick, “Network News: More trains... but advice is not to use public transport”, in Rail, pages 7–8:

     "RMT has made it clear that our members have a right to refuse to work in unsafe conditions, and the union will be closely monitoring the situation. [...]"

Synonyms

• (not held or fixed securely and likely to fall over): precarious, rickety, shaky, tottering, unsteady, unstable, wobbly

Derived terms

• memory-unsafe
• unsafe sex

 

Translations

not safe

• Bulgarian: несигурен (bg) (nesiguren), опасен (bg) (opasen)
• Catalan: insegur (ca)
• Danish: usikker
• Dutch: onveilig (nl)
• Finnish: turvaton (fi) (not safe); vaarallinen (fi) (dangerous)
• French: dangereux (fr)
• German: unsicher (de)
• Italian: insicura (it)
• Latin: intūtus
• Maori: haumarukore
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: usikker (no)

  Nynorsk: usikker

• Polish: niebezpieczny (pl)
• Portuguese: inseguro (pt)
• Romanian: nesigur (ro)
• Russian: опасный (ru) (opasnyj)
• Serbo-Croatian: opasan (sh)
• Spanish: inseguro (es)

Etymology 2

From un- (reversive prefix) +‎ safe.

Verb

unsafe (third-person singular simple present unsafes, present participle unsafing, simple past and past participle unsafed)

1. (transitive) To remove the safety from (a weapon).

Anagrams

• faunes, fausen