- a small wire or device inside a piece of electrical equipment that breaks and stops the current if the flow of electricity is too strong
- to change a fuse
- Check whether a fuse has blown.
Extra ExamplesTopics Engineeringc2- Make sure that the correct fuse is fitted.
- When the machine was switched on it blew a fuse.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- 5-amp
- 10-amp
- 13-amp
- …
- change
- replace
- blow
- …
- blow
- wire
- box
- (North American English also fuze)a long piece of string or paper that is lit to make a bomb or a firework explodeOxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective
- short
- long
- slow
- …
- set
- light
- (North American English also fuze)a device that makes a bomb explode when it hits something or at a particular time
- He set the fuse to three minutes.
- The bombs inside were on a one-hour fuse.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- short
- long
- slow
- …
- set
- light
Word Originnoun sense 1 late 16th cent.: from Latin fus- ‘poured, melted’, from the verb fundere. noun senses 2 to 3 mid 17th cent.: from Italian fuso, from Latin fusus ‘spindle’.
Idioms
See fuse in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionaryblow a fuse
- (informal) to get very angryTopics Feelingsc2
have/be on a short fuse
- to tend to get angry quickly and easily
Check pronunciation:
fuse