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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Officials have advised residents to take precautions against the heat, such as staying hydrated.—
Christian Cervantes,
AZCentral.com,
1 Mar. 2026
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Israel has begun taking extensive precautions, including the closing of its airspace and restrictions on civilian movement.—
Brady Knox,
The Washington Examiner,
28 Feb. 2026
Noun
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The group pummelled the bot with more than 1,000 prompts to bypass the safeguards and convince Claude they were allowed to test the system for vulnerabilities.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
5 Mar. 2026
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The case is likely to intensify scrutiny over how large language models handle vulnerable users and whether current safeguards are sufficient.—
Neetika Walter,
Interesting Engineering,
5 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Fail-safes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fail-safes. Accessed 6 Mar. 2026.
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