fuse

• enPR: fyo͞oz, IPA^(key): /fjuːz/
• Hyphenation: fuse
• Rhymes: -uːz

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

fuse (plural fuses)

1. A cord that, when lit, conveys the fire to some explosive device.

   Synonym: fuze (US)

2. (manufacturing, mining, military) The mechanism that ignites the charge in an explosive device.

   Synonym: fuze

3. (electrical engineering) A device to prevent the overloading of an electrical circuit.
4. (figuratively) Indicating a tendency to lose one's temper.

   When talking about being laid off, he has a short fuse.

5. A friction match for smokers' use, having a bulbous head which when ignited is not easily blown out even in a gale of wind.
6. A kind of match made of paper impregnated with niter and having the usual igniting tip.

Professional publications about explosives and munitions distinguish the fuse and fuze spellings. The latter is preferred for the sense “mechanism that ignites the charge”.

• blow a fuse
• fusebox
• fuse wire
• short fuse

Back-formation from fusion (“to melt”).

fuse (third-person singular simple present fuses, present participle fusing, simple past and past participle fused)

1. (transitive) To melt together; to blend; to mix indistinguishably.
2. (intransitive) To melt together.
3. To furnish with or install a fuse.
4. (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

• (mix indistinguishably): See also Thesaurus:homogenize
• (melt together): meld, smelt

• feus

• Homophones: fusent, fuses

fuse

1. first-person singular present indicative of fuser
2. third-person singular present indicative of fuser
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of fuser
4. first-person singular present subjunctive of fuser
5. second-person singular imperative of fuser

fuse

1. Feminine plural of adjective fuso.

fuse f pl

1. plural of fusa

fuse f pl

1. feminine plural of fuso

fuse

1. third-person singular past historic of fondere

fūse

1. vocative masculine singular of fūsus

• fuse in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• fuse in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• fuse in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette

• IPA^(key): [fuˈse]

fuse

1. third-person singular simple perfect indicative of fi: he/she has been

• fu (informal)

fuse

1. first-person singular imperfect subjunctive of èser
2. third-person singular imperfect subjunctive of èser
3. third-person plural imperfect subjunctive of èser