safety valve

noun
1.
a device that, when actuated by a gas or vapor pressure above a predetermined level, opens and allows the gas or vapor to escape until its pressure is reduced to a pressure equal to or below that of the predetermined level. Compare relief valve.
2.
a harmless outlet for emotion, tension, etc.
Origin:
1805–15

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source Link To safety valve
Collins
World English Dictionary
safety valve
 
—n
1.  a valve in a pressure vessel that allows fluid to escape when a predetermined level of pressure has been reached
2.  a harmless outlet for emotion, energy, tension, etc

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10
Safety valve is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...
Example sentences
The state's ultimate safety valve was an expensive program of distilling all
  the excess wine into industrial alcohol.
The initiative process, originally meant as a safety valve, has in reality
  become a rival to the legislature.
Second, if something goes wrong there is safety valve.
The safety valve shall be certified by the national board of boiler and
  pressure vessel inspectors.
Matching Quote
"It is ... useful to distinguish between the pornographic, condemned in every society, and the bawdy, the ribald, the shared vulgarities and jokes, which are the safety valves of most social systems. Pornography is a most doubtful safety valve. In extreme cases it may feed the perverted imagination of the doomed man who starts by pulling a little girl's braid and ends by cutting off a little girl's head, as each increasing stimulus loses its effectiveness and must be replaced by a more extreme one. This is particularly true of the pornography primarily designed to be brooded over in secret. But is quite otherwise with the music hall jokes, the folk ribaldry at a wedding, the innocent smut of the smoking rooms, where men who are perennially faithful to their wives exchange stories which release explosive laughter. Pornography does not lead to laughter, it leads to deadly serious pursuit of sexual satisfaction divorced from personality and from every other meaning. The uproarious laugh of the group who recognize a common dilemma—the laughter of a group of women at the story of the intractable unborn who refused to budge and merely shivered under the effects of the quart of ice cream hopefully eaten by its poor mother, the laughter of a group of men at the story of the bride who asked to be "frightened" a fourth time—is the laughter of human beings who are making the best of the imperfect social arrangements within which their life here on earth is conducted."
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