diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index cc13aa4c..8bf49a8d 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -118,6 +118,27 @@ However, there are some instances where they are acceptable:
 3. The presence of `Option::None` or `Result::Err` is truly an unexpected scenario
    and you intend the program to panic.
 
+#### Use of the terms "safe" and "safety"
+
+As we are programming in Rust, the terms safe and unsafe are narrowly defined to
+refer to the safety in the sense that is common to the Rust programming community,
+i.e. "Safe Rust" and "Unsafe Rust", as mentioned in [The Rustonomicon].
+
+With this in mind, we only accept the use of "safe" about code if it is related
+to implementing something within the realm of Unsafe Rust, as well as upholding
+guarantees demanded by Safe Rust. The comment must describe why the use of
+Unsafe Rust is in fact safe (i.e. which invariants are considered), and under
+which conditions.
+
+We will not accept the use of "safe" to describe conditions under which code
+will not panic, i.e. why it would be panic-free to use `unreachable!`, `unwrap`,
+or `expect`. As we differentiate between "panic-free Rust" and Safe Rust.
+We will, however, still recommend that those uses are documented – generally
+using a `# Panics` header followed by an explanatory paragraph in a documenting
+comment.
+
+[The Rustonomicon]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nomicon/meet-safe-and-unsafe.html
+
 #### Module imports
 
 Modules are declared at the top of the file, before the imports. Public modules