fail-safe
adjective · noun · verb
Simple meaning
That does not cause undue damage in the event of failure.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
faylsayfSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfeɪlseɪf
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
That does not cause undue damage in the event of failure.
Designed to shut off for safety if an emergency occurs.
noun
A device, mechanism or measure designed to make something fail-safe.
verb
To make a device or mechanism fail-safe, or to add a fail-safe device or mechanism to an existing system.
To compensate automatically, in the event of a failure.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: That does not cause undue damage in the event of failure.
Used this way, fail-safe is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It criticises, but without shouting.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Critical but measured
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.