Word.ws English Dictionary

save the day

save the day verb: to rescue a person or situation from imminent danger or major failure.

Verb

save the day (third-person singular simple present saves the day, present participle saving the day, simple past and past participle saved the day)

  1. (humorous, idiomatic, sometimes) To rescue a person or situation from imminent danger or major failure.
    • [H]e acted as chief of staff to General Rosecranz, aiding his superior officer at a most critical point in the battle by advice which had an important influence in saving the day.1881, Horatio Alger, chapter 25, in From Canal Boy to President or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield
    • “It's Paddy,” cried Craig. “If he can bring them all out safely without the loss of a life he'll save the day yet.”1912, Arthur B. Reeve, chapter 6, in The Poisoned Pen

Examples of save the day in a sentence

  • An effective vaccine would save the day and last year researchers at Yale were reporting some progress.1991 June 24, John Skow with et al., “Life In The Age Of Lyme”, in Time, archived from the original on 30 Jun 2011:
  • Maybe a strapping woodsman will come along and save the day.2008 May 28, Eugene Robinson, “The ravages of the Clinton campaign”, in San Francisco Chronicle, archived from the original on 30 Jun 2013:

Forms of save the day

third-person singular presentsaves the day
present participlesaving the day
past participlesaved the day
pastsaved the day

Questions about save the day

What does save the day mean?
Save the day means to rescue a person or situation from imminent danger or major failure.
How do you use save the day in a sentence?
An effective vaccine would save the day and last year researchers at Yale were reporting some progress.
What part of speech is save the day?
Save the day is a verb.
What is the past tense of save the day?
The past tense of save the day is saved the day.

Words near save the day in the dictionary

  1. save state
  2. save states
  3. save the best for last
  4. save the date
  5. save the dates
  6. save the day
  7. save the drama for your mama
  8. save the drama for your momma
  9. save the furniture
  10. save the mark
  11. save up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: save the day (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-save the day.ogg.

Cite this entry: “save the day.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/save_the_day. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.