Word.ws English Dictionary

save someone's face

save someone's face verb: to preserve someone's pride, especially as defined by customary social settings.

Verb

save someone's face (third-person singular simple present saves someone's face, present participle saving someone's face, simple past and past participle saved someone's face)

  1. (idiomatic) to preserve someone's pride, especially as defined by customary social settings.

Forms of save someone's face

third-person singular presentsaves someone's face
present participlesaving someone's face
past participlesaved someone's face
pastsaved someone's face

Questions about save someone's face

What does save someone's face mean?
Save someone's face means to preserve someone's pride, especially as defined by customary social settings.
What part of speech is save someone's face?
Save someone's face is a verb.
What is the past tense of save someone's face?
The past tense of save someone's face is saved someone's face.

Words near save someone's face in the dictionary

  1. save shot
  2. save shots
  3. save slot
  4. save slots
  5. save someone's bacon
  6. save someone's face
  7. save someone's life
  8. save someone's skin
  9. save something for a rainy day
  10. save state
  11. save states

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: save someone's face (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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