Other forms: fuses
A fuse is a safety strip that melts to break an electrical circuit. Blow a fuse, change the fuse, a fuse box.
It is a deliberate weak point, since something has to fail first and it is cheaper for that to be a wire than a house. Blow a fuse also means lose your temper, and a fuse on a bomb is a different word entirely.
1nounfuseA safety strip that melts to break an electrical circuit.
“The hairdryer stopped working, so Dad replaced the fuse in its plug.”
fuse is a device.
Latin fusus means a spindle, by way of Italian and French, from the shape of the original tube.
Latin
fūsus — spindle
French
fusée
Italian
fuso
English, today
fuse
From Italian fuso and French fusée, from Latin fūsus (“spindle”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA