an amount of money you keep or the reduction in cost you get by spending less
Using public buses instead of taxis gave Maria a saving of nearly fifty dollars during her trip.
There is a ten-percent saving on all books this weekend at the local store.
✦ From Middle English savinge, formed from save + -ing, originally meaning the act of preserving and later the money kept.
designed to reduce the amount of money, time, energy, or other resources that are used
He bought an energy-saving refrigerator for the kitchen.
Time-saving apps help students focus on studying.
✦ Derived from the participial adjective sense of “save,” first recorded in the late 19th century in compounds like “labor-saving.”
except for; with the exception of
Everyone, saving Emma, arrived on time.
The hike was easy, saving the steep final climb.
✦ Medieval legal English used “saving” to introduce exceptions; the sense was carried into general formal prose.
the act of rescuing someone or something from danger or loss
The quick saving of the drowning child amazed the crowd.
His role in the saving of historic paintings earned him an award.
✦ From Old French ‘sauvage’ and Latin ‘salvare’, meaning to make safe; extended in English to the abstract noun sense of rescue.
to keep money, time, or resources instead of using them so you can use them later
Emily tries to save five dollars from her allowance every week.
During the dry season, the town asks everyone to save water by taking shorter showers.
✦ From Old French sauver, from Latin salvāre “to make safe, protect, preserve.”
to stop someone or something from being hurt, lost, or destroyed
The firefighter saved the kitten from the burning house.
Wearing a seat belt can save your life in a crash.
to store data or a document on a computer or device so you can open it later
Don’t forget to save your document before shutting down the laptop.
He saved the photos to a cloud drive so he could view them on his phone.
