fuse

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A wick or cord used to convey flame to gunpowder, a bomb, or similar explosive.
  2. An otherwise stable arbitrarily long repeating pattern that, when perturbed from one end, destructively carries that perturbation at a constant speed to the other end.
  3. Alternative spelling of fuze, a detonator, any mechanism igniting an explosive substance or device.
  4. A tendency to lose one's temper.
  5. A kind of match for starting a fire:
  6. A friction match for smokers' use, having a bulbous head which when ignited is not easily blown out even in a gale of wind.
  7. A match made of paper impregnated with niter and having the usual igniting tip.
verb
  1. To furnish with a fuse, to install a fuse on.
  2. Alternative spelling of fuze, to equip with a detonator.
noun
  1. A device to prevent excessive overcurrent from overload or short circuit in an electrical circuit, containing a component that melts and interrupts the current when too high a load is passed through it.
verb
  1. To liquify by heat; melt.
  2. To melt together; to blend; to mix indistinguishably.
  3. To melt together.
  4. To combine through nuclear fusion.
  5. To furnish with or install a fuse in (a circuit) to protect against overcurrent.
  6. To stop operating, having been protected against overcurrent by its fuse blowing.
  7. To form a bicyclic compound from two similar or different types of ring such that two or more atoms are shared between the resulting rings.

Pronunciation

fyo͞oz /fjuːz/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fuse.wav

Word forms

fuse fuses fusing fused

Etymology

From Italian fuso and French fusée, from Latin fūsus (“spindle”).

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.