safety-valve

See also: safety valve

English

safety-valve (third-person singular simple present safety-valves, present participle safety-valving, simple past and past participle safety-valved) (transitive)

Sometimes followed by off:
1. To use a relief valve on (a container holding a gas or vapour) to relieve excessive pressure which has built up inside.
2. To install a relief valve on (such a container) for that purpose.
3. (figuratively) To use some mechanism to relieve (physical or emotional pressure or tension).

to use some mechanism to relieve pressure

Finnish: päästää painetta
Galician: please add this translation if you can
Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: please add this translation if you can

Roman: please add this translation if you can

to install a relief valve on (such a container) for that purpose

Finnish: asentaa varoventtiili
Galician: please add this translation if you can
Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: please add this translation if you can

Roman: please add this translation if you can

to use some mechanism to relieve (physical or emotional pressure or tension)

Finnish: purkautua (fi)
Galician: please add this translation if you can
Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: please add this translation if you can

Roman: please add this translation if you can

safety-valve (plural safety-valves)

Alternative form of safety valve
- 1840, F[rederick] M[arryat], “Diary on the Continent. Chapter XIX.”, in Olla Podrida. […], volume I, London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, […], →OCLC, pages 205–206:
  […] I have often thought that it was a great error in our legislature when they consented to put down the public lotteries in England. I am convinced that they were beneficial, acting as safety-valves to the gambling spirit of the nation, and that their prohibition has been productive of much crime and misery.

“safety-valve, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022.

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