From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfail-safeˈfail-safe adjective 1 Ta fail-safe machine, piece of equipment etc contains a system that makes the machine stop working if one part of it fails2 EFFECTIVEa fail-safe plan is certain to succeed
Examples from the Corpus
fail-safe• And the idiots had hooked the man's life support on to a wholly independent generator, the prison fail-safe.• Each one must be set up with fail-safe guides for a true and even curve.• When we faint we return to normal breathing and so fainting is a fail-safe mechanism for hyperventilation control.• The fail-safe method of dealing with a software problem was to make another copy of the disk that came with the application.• Note that there is a fail-safe principle in the design.• All jets have an immediate fail-safe switch that retracts a failed thrust-reverser.• But there was no fail-safe way to dress for outings in Roman's company. 