Safety

Safety is the state of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk.

The word 'safety' entered the English language in the 14th century. It is derived from Latin salvus, meaning uninjured, in good health, safe. via Middle English saufte, from Anglo-French salveté, saufté, from salf safe.

The term is used often and in a wide range of contexts. Despite a popular impression that the meaning is well known and universally understood, there is no universally accepted definition. The assumption of common understanding is prevalent in standards, guidelines and dissertations, which do not provide a definition which might ensure that the use of the term in their specific context is unambiguous.

Definitions are generally based on community acceptance and understanding, so a given definition is not necessarily inherently better than another, and can illustrate a variety of different perspectives. It can be defined as the absence of risk and adverse incidents, or as the presence of a capability to defend against adverse events and mitigate their effects. The Oxford English Dictionary uses "freedom from danger and risks" and Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes it as "the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss."

Other definitions of safety from the literature include:

As an outcome, safety is an acceptable history of adverse events. As a target, safety involves proactive planning and strategies to minimise risk in a changing environment, while as an ongoing process, safety involves ensuring that people, environment and property will be protected in the current situation, and adverse incidents are mitigated when they occur.

Safety is the condition of a "steady state" of an organization or place doing what it is supposed to do. "What it is supposed to do" is defined in terms of public codes and standards, associated architectural and engineering designs, corporate vision and mission statements, and operational plans and personnel policies. For any organization, place, or function, large or small, safety is a normative concept. It complies with situation-specific definitions of what is expected and acceptable.

Using this definition, protection from a home's external threats and protection from its internal structural and equipment failures (see Meanings, above) are not two types of safety but rather two aspects of a home's steady state.