Word.ws English Dictionary

fail-safe

/ˈfeɪlˌseɪf/

fail-safe adjective: that does not cause undue damage in the event of failure.

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.
    • All equipment is, of course, of "fail-safe" pattern.1961 February, “Talking of Trains: Automated trains in New York”, in Trains Illustrated, page 78

Noun

fail-safe (plural fail-safes)

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

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.

fail-safe meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Telugu

fail-safe in Tamil

பழுதுகாப்பு

fail-safe in Bengali

অব্যর্থ

fail-safe in Telugu

that does not cause undue damage
కట్టుదిట్టమైన kaṭṭudiṭṭamaina, పాడవని pāḍavani, చెడిపోని ceḍipōni

Forms of fail-safe

Noun
pluralfail-safes
Verb
third-person singular presentfail-safes
present participlefail-safing
past participlefail-safed
pastfail-safed
alternative formfail safe

Questions about fail-safe

What does fail-safe mean?
Fail-safe means that does not cause undue damage in the event of failure.
What is fail-safe in Tamil?
Fail-safe in Tamil is பழுதுகாப்பு. See Fail-safe meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is fail-safe?
Fail-safe can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce fail-safe?
Fail-safe is pronounced /ˈfeɪlˌseɪf/.

Words near fail-safe in the dictionary

  1. fail upwards
  2. fail whale
  3. fail whales
  4. fail'd
  5. fail-deadly
  6. fail-safe
  7. fail-safed
  8. fail-safes
  9. fail-safing
  10. fail-secure
  11. fail-soft

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fail-safe (page history and authors); fail-safe (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fail-safe (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fail-safe.wav.

Cite this entry: “fail-safe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fail-safe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.