Electronics. pertaining to or noting a mechanism built into a system, as in an early warning system or a nuclear reactor, for insuring safety should the system fail to operate properly.
equipped with a secondary system that insures continued operation even if the primary system fails.
(sometimes initial capital letter)of, relating to, or designating a system of coded military controls in which bombers dispatched to a prearranged point as part of a standard operating procedure cannot advance farther without direct orders from a designated authority and cannot have the nuclear warheads they carry armed until they have passed their prearranged point.
guaranteed to work; totally reliable: a fail-safe recipe for a cheese soufflé.
noun
(sometimes initial capital letter)the point beyond which the bombers cannot go without specific instruction; the fail-safe point.
something designed to work or function automatically to prevent breakdown of a mechanism, system, or the like.
verb (used with object),fail-safed,fail-saf·ing.
to make fail-safe.
Origin of fail-safe
First recorded in 1945–50; apparently from verb phrase to fail safe(ly)
