safety
/ˈseɪfti/noun, verb
safety is spelled S-A-F-E-T-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is saftey: about 1,260 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 13 of all searches for the word. Safety is a noun meaning “The condition or feeling of being safe; security; certainty”. The plural of safety is safeties.
How many letters and syllables are in safety?
| Letters | 6: S-A-F-E-T-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 93 times per million words; the 1,144th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, saftey, about 1,260 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell safety?
Safety is spelled S-A-F-E-T-Y. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for safety in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is safety?
Safety appears 93 times per million words in written English, the 1,144th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce safety?
- /ˈseɪfti/
Safety has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-safety.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of safety
- safeties plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- safetying participle, present
- safetied participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does safety mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The condition or feeling of being safe; security; certainty.
If you push it to the limit, safety is not guaranteed.
- 2
A safety lock or safety catch: a mechanism on a weapon or dangerous equipment designed to prevent accidental firing or operation.
Be sure that the safety is set before proceeding.
- 3
Preservation from escape; close custody.
- 4
An instance of a player being sacked or tackled in the end zone, or stepping out of the end zone and off the field, resulting in two points to the opposite team.
He sacked the quarterback in the end zone for a safety.
- 5
Any of the defensive players who are in position furthest from the line of scrimmage and whose responsibility is to defend against passes as well as to be the tacklers of last resort.
The free safety made a game-saving tackle on the runner who had broken past the linebackers.
- 6
A safety squeeze.
- 7
A safety shot or sequence of such shots.
That was a poor safety from Higgins.
- 8
datedA safety bicycle.
verb
- 1
To secure (a mechanical component, as in aviation) to keep it from becoming detached even under vibration.
- 2
to secure a firing pin, as in guns, to keep the gun from firing
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate safety?
Wiktionary records 3 abbreviations of safety: EHS, HSE, SHE.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Safety in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | sécurité, sûreté |
| German | Sicherheit, Gefahrlosigkeit , Griffsicherung , Safety |
| Portuguese | segurança , dispositivo de segurança |
| Spanish | seguridad, seguranza, asegureña, amparo , seguro |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does safety come from?
Inherited from Middle English savete, from Old French sauveté, from earlier salvetet, from Medieval Latin salvitās, salvitātem, from Latin salvus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).