fuse
/fjuːz/ noun, verb
Also a form of fuze
Forms fuses fusing fused
- noun A wick or cord used to convey flame to gunpowder, a bomb, or similar explosive.
- noun (cellular automata) 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.
- noun (figurative) A tendency to lose one's temper. “When talking about being laid off, he has a short fuse.”
- noun A friction match for smokers' use, having a bulbous head which when ignited is not easily blown out even in a gale of wind.
- noun A match made of paper impregnated with niter and having the usual igniting tip.
- verb To furnish with a fuse, to install a fuse on.
- noun (electrical engineering) 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 (transitive) To liquify by heat; melt.
- verb (transitive) To melt together; to blend; to mix indistinguishably. “sensations and ideas fusing intimately together”
- verb (intransitive) To melt together.
- verb (ergative, physics, astronomy) To combine through nuclear fusion.
- verb (transitive, electricity) To furnish with or install a fuse in (a circuit) to protect against overcurrent.
- verb (intransitive, electricity, of a circuit) To stop operating, having been protected against overcurrent by its fuse blowing. “When the bath overflowed, the downstairs lights fused, so we need a torch.”
- verb (organic chemistry) 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.
Synonyms
fusee match meld smelt electrical fuse safety fuse fuze fuzee primer priming blend flux mix conflate commingle immix coalesce combine merge
Antonyms
Etymology
From Italian fuso and French fusée, from Latin fūsus (“spindle”).
Back-formation from fusion (“to melt”), first to verbal sense, then noun.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To liquefy by heat; to render fiuid; to dissolve; to melt.
- verb To unite or blend, as if melted together.
- verb To be reduced from a solid to a Quid state by heat; to be melted; to melt.
- verb To be blended, as if melted together. Fusing point, the degree of temperature at which a substance melts; the point of fusion.
Etymology [L. fusus, p. p. of fundere to pour, melt, cast. See Foundo to cast, and cf. Futile.]
Etymology [For fusee, fusil. See 2d Fusil.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “fuse”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details