WordNet
n. an index indicating the amount beyond the minimum necessary; "in engineering the margin of safety is the strength of the material minus the anticipated stress" [syn: margin of safety, margin of error]
Usage examples of "safety margin".
This is well within the safety margin for our four full-sized drill-rigs.
They were of Earth and they would think in the manner of those who had never lived where the safety margin of life was a thin, thin line—.
Not the safety margin I would have preferred, but obviously it will have to do.
There was the clearing, and he was sure he'd hit it, though he pulled on one riser to spill air from his parachute in the hope of hitting the middle of it and increasing the safety margin that was as much theoretical as real for a night drop.
And if we go with no safety margin, we create a situation in which if any part of the environmental plant does go down, people die.
Anakin would have liked to give them a safety margin of twice that, but sixty seconds seemed like an eternity.
You know the pitches will be changed once the storm has passed and you're losing your safety margin by the minute, but that last crystal might mean you'd get off-world .
Hazel allotted one-fourth her fuel as safety margin, allotted the working balance for maximum accelerations, figuring the projected mass-ratios in her head.
Leo was uncertain whether to think of it as a safety margin or just a slow death.
With three of them sucking on one tank, that did not leave a comfortable safety margin.
As Spock had pointed out, the safety margin was just a few millionths of a percent.