as in precautions
a measure taken to preclude loss or injury
there are so many fail-safes built into the system that a highly unlikely series of mistakes would have to be made before failure could occur
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Recent Examples of fail-safes
The team also developed numerous fail-safes to ensure consistent, trustworthy performance.
—
IEEE Spectrum, 26 Sep. 2016
IEEE Spectrum, 26 Sep. 2016
Recent Examples of Synonyms for fail-safes
Noun
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Stay well-informed and take the necessary precautions to shield yourself and others from the potential hazards of extreme heat.—
Bay Area Weather Report,
Mercury News,
14 Mar. 2026
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Security teams have reportedly escalated precautions around the event after the FBI warned local law enforcement that Iran has explored launching drones towards the US West Coast in retaliation for recent military action against the country.—
Lizzie Lanuza,
StyleCaster,
13 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Lawmakers and independent experts who spoke to NBC News raised alarm over the military’s use of such tools, calling for clear safeguards to ensure humans remain involved in life-or-death decisions on the battlefield.—
Kevin Collier,
NBC news,
11 Mar. 2026
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Anthropic lost out on a $200 million Pentagon contract because its CEO refused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s demands to remove the Anthropic chatbot Claude’s internal safeguards against spying on Americans and against launching weapons without human oversight.—
DP Opinion,
Denver Post,
11 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Fail-safes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fail-safes. Accessed 19 Mar. 2026.
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