Something used to set off an explosive. Something in old houses before circuit breakers. Something in your car to protect the wiring and components.
Which is the correct spelling? ‘Fuse’, or ‘fuze’? Not that I use or write the word with any great frequency, but the spelling always confuses me.
Per wikipedia, FWIW:
Is it fuze or fuse?
“Fuse”, derived from fusus, the past participle of fundo, means “to melt”, e.g., the term “fuse-wire” used in electrical circuits. “Fuze”, on the other hand, is the shortened or modern method of spelling “fuzee”, meaning a tube filled with combustible material.
So, I learned something - I was also under the mistaken impression that “fuze” was just an American variant spelling of the same word.
But I’m not quite convinced about the latter part from the above cite [my bold]:
“Fuze” is NOT “the American spelling,” it is the correct spelling for what is a quite distinct and separate word.
It looks like there is a valid prescribed distinction between the two spellings as technical terms, but that the etymological distinction is not clear cut:
Some professional publications about explosives and munitions distinguish the “fuse” and “fuze” spelling. The UK Ministry of Defence states (emphasis in original):
Fuse: Cord or tube for the transmission of flame or explosion usually consisting of cord or rope with gunpowder or high explosive spun into it. (The spelling fuze may also be met for this term, but fuse is the preferred spelling in this context.)
Fuze: A device with explosive components designed to initiate a main charge. (The spelling fuse may also be met for this term, but fuze is the preferred spelling in this context.)
Historically, it was spelled with either ‘s’ or ‘z’, and both spellings can still be found.
In US military parlance in my era, a fuze set off explosives / munitions. A fuse stopped electrical overloads, fluid leaks, pneumatic overpressures, mechanical overloads, etc.
Two different words with different spellings and no overlap in meanings.
I’ve never seen “fuze,” but I am not military. Isn’t it the brand name of some energy drink or something?
Given that your split in the two meanings is a different split from the U.K. military usage I quoted above - I think that we can conclude that there’s no consensus on this!
Even the cord used to set off fireworks, dynamite, etc.? That’s always a fuse, in my experience. A fuze is a more advanced component for a bomb, mine, etc.
This US Army field manual for explosives mostly uses fuse:
Though it does say fuze a few times, mostly in the context of the M60 weatherproof fuze igniter. Which maybe implies again that a device is a fuze, while the cord is a fuse.
That is my experience, too. A fuze is something like a proximity fuze for artillery or anti-aircraft weapons, or a magnetic fuze for an anti-ship mine. It’s an actual device, not a chunk of cord.
Basically, the same thing that @Riemann posted upthread. While the cited reference is from the UK, that matches my experience in the US.
Hmm. I didn’t deal with det cord or the sort of fuse/fuze you light on fire to trigger a detonation. Just the mechanical / electronic initiators sort of devices.
So apparently I had it wrong all along.
Another wrinkle, related to this:
Meaning “device that breaks an electrical circuit” is first recorded 1884, so named for its shape, but erroneously attributed to fuse (v.) because it melts.
So they all derive from the combustible cord/tube sense. But there has been a slight split in usage between fuse and fuze. I guess someone along the way felt that the complex devices used to set off bombs, while clearly analogous to the cord in simpler explosives, still deserved a distinct name.
Thanks for the answers. I’m still confused. Am I correct that a ‘fuze’ would be a mechanical device used to set of an aerial bomb or a grenade, and ‘fuse’ would be an electrical device used to cut off a circuit, and that a combustible cord is interchangeably ‘fuze’ or ‘fuse’?
The electrical device is always a fuse.
Fuse vs. fuze in terms of setting off an explosive seems rather like the “motor vs. engine” or “rocket vs. missile” debates. They mean the same thing, and there are no real rules for why a thing is called one or the other, but in actual usage they are distinct. And in that sense, a combustible cord is almost always a fuse, while a device used to set off a bomb is a fuze. But you’ll almost certainly find exceptions and so it couldn’t be called a hard and fast rule.
Are these purely terms of art within a military context? I see dictionary.com does list “fuze” as “less commonly” for the definition " a mechanical or electrical detonating device for setting off the bursting charge of a projectile, bomb, or torpedo." I would use “fuse” for all those usages as a civilian.
I think that the confusion here might be in different senses of the phrase “setting off an explosive”. A lot of explosives won’t set off unless they’re shocked very violently, which is a good thing for the people who handle them, because you don’t want explosives to go off at the wrong time. Which means that, in practice, a device that’s supposed to explode will contain a large amount of that stable explosive, plus a small amount of some other explosive that explodes first, to set off the stable explosive. As I understand it, that smaller explosive is what’s being called a “fuze” here. It’s not the same thing as the gunpowder-infused string that you use to trigger an explosion from a distance, or with a time delay.
I’m not sure the distinction is that clear cut. A clockwork device that starts a fire after some time delay would also be a fuze, even though the net effect is the same as a simple gunpowder-infused cord. A fuze could be any device of that nature.
That’s where I’ve seen it!!
Yeah, look like not an energy drink, but a selection of flavored teas and maybe fruit drinks a la Arizona Iced Tea.
I dunno about “purely,” though undoubtedly military organizations are both more consistent with terminology and have greater need for the distinction. I have zero military background and vaguely recall a time when I thought fuze was just an odd spelling of fuse, but I’ve read enough about military devices since then that fuze=device is pretty ingrained in my head.
Where I work, we call these things squibs.
