fail-safe

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

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

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.

• fail-deadly
• failsoft

• fault-tolerant
• foolproof
• guardrail (noun)

fail-safe (plural fail-safes)

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

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 (with differing inflections)

• foolproof

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