"molly-guard" meaning in English

See molly-guard in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈmɒli ɡɑːd/ [UK], /ˈmɑli ɡɑɹd/ [US] Forms: molly-guards [plural]
Etymology: From Molly (“female given name”) + guard. Originally a Plexiglas cover improvised for the Big Red Switch on an IBM 4341 mainframe after a programmer's toddler daughter (named Molly) tripped it twice in one day. Later generalised to covers over stop/reset switches on disk drives and networking equipment. Etymology templates: {{m|en|Molly||female given name}} Molly (“female given name”), {{m|en|guard}} guard Head templates: {{en-noun}} molly-guard (plural molly-guards)
  1. A physical barrier to protect something from unwanted contact, especially a shield to prevent accidental tripping of an emergency shutdown or power switch. Categories (topical): Computing

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for molly-guard meaning in English (3.1kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "Molly",
        "3": "",
        "4": "female given name"
      },
      "expansion": "Molly (“female given name”)",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "guard"
      },
      "expansion": "guard",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Molly (“female given name”) + guard.\nOriginally a Plexiglas cover improvised for the Big Red Switch on an IBM 4341 mainframe after a programmer's toddler daughter (named Molly) tripped it twice in one day. Later generalised to covers over stop/reset switches on disk drives and networking equipment.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "molly-guards",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "molly-guard (plural molly-guards)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
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          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
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          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Computing",
          "orig": "en:Computing",
          "parents": [
            "Technology",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "There is a plastic molly-guard covering the escalator's shutdown button to prevent little kids from pushing it and stopping the escalator."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1978, Proceedings of the 13th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, volume 3, Society of Automotive Engineers, page 1948",
          "text": "The radial heat losses are minimized by the Molly Guard foil which establishes a linear temperature profile between the hot heater housing and the water cooled base plate.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "1998 August 10, kensmark, “Vi versus Word. The pros and cons (or why does Vi remiond me of a bigger version of notepad?)”, rec.arts.sf.composition, Usenet,\nTherefore, we have many \"molly guards,\" which are kludged covers that protect the on/off switch and keep you from hitting it by accident."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 September 6, Simon Slavin, “Manual on/off switch with electrical off-trip?”, in uk.comp.sys.mac (Usenet)",
          "text": "To include switch, cut-out and molly guard, you'll probably need to order at least two, probably three components.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A physical barrier to protect something from unwanted contact, especially a shield to prevent accidental tripping of an emergency shutdown or power switch."
      ],
      "id": "en-molly-guard-en-noun-UvtW2Y3i"
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmɒli ɡɑːd/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmɑli ɡɑɹd/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "molly-guard"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "Molly",
        "3": "",
        "4": "female given name"
      },
      "expansion": "Molly (“female given name”)",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "guard"
      },
      "expansion": "guard",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Molly (“female given name”) + guard.\nOriginally a Plexiglas cover improvised for the Big Red Switch on an IBM 4341 mainframe after a programmer's toddler daughter (named Molly) tripped it twice in one day. Later generalised to covers over stop/reset switches on disk drives and networking equipment.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "molly-guards",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "molly-guard (plural molly-guards)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English eponyms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "en:Computing"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "There is a plastic molly-guard covering the escalator's shutdown button to prevent little kids from pushing it and stopping the escalator."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1978, Proceedings of the 13th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, volume 3, Society of Automotive Engineers, page 1948",
          "text": "The radial heat losses are minimized by the Molly Guard foil which establishes a linear temperature profile between the hot heater housing and the water cooled base plate.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "1998 August 10, kensmark, “Vi versus Word. The pros and cons (or why does Vi remiond me of a bigger version of notepad?)”, rec.arts.sf.composition, Usenet,\nTherefore, we have many \"molly guards,\" which are kludged covers that protect the on/off switch and keep you from hitting it by accident."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008 September 6, Simon Slavin, “Manual on/off switch with electrical off-trip?”, in uk.comp.sys.mac (Usenet)",
          "text": "To include switch, cut-out and molly guard, you'll probably need to order at least two, probably three components.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A physical barrier to protect something from unwanted contact, especially a shield to prevent accidental tripping of an emergency shutdown or power switch."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmɒli ɡɑːd/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmɑli ɡɑɹd/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "molly-guard"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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