Word.ws English Dictionary

save the furniture

save the furniture verb: to salvage something positive from a calamitous situation, especially one involving the reputation or fate of a political party.

Verb

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

  1. (Australia, Canada, UK, idiomatic) To salvage something positive from a calamitous situation, especially one involving the reputation or fate of a political party.
    • [S]winging progressives were keen to consolidate the diving Labor vote and save the furniture so that a reasonably-sized progressive opposition party could live to fight another day.2013 October 4, Christopher Drew, “Why the Greens were the real election losers”, in ABC News, Australia, retrieved 04 Dec 2016
    • A week after a headline in a Montreal newspaper suggested the NDP Leader’s numbers are so low it is time to “save the furniture,” he is still battling aggressively.2015 October 4, Gloria Galloway, “Mulcair touts NDP as only way for western Canadians to oust Tories”, in Globe and Mail, Canada, retrieved 04 Dec 2016

Forms of save the furniture

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

Origin of save the furniture

An allusion to rapidly removing as much furniture as possible from a building threatened by fire, flood, or a similar disaster. Compare French sauver les meubles.

Questions about save the furniture

What does save the furniture mean?
Save the furniture means to salvage something positive from a calamitous situation, especially one involving the reputation or fate of a political party.
What part of speech is save the furniture?
Save the furniture is a verb.
What is the past tense of save the furniture?
The past tense of save the furniture is saved the furniture.

Words near save the furniture in the dictionary

  1. save the date
  2. save the dates
  3. save the day
  4. save the drama for your mama
  5. save the drama for your momma
  6. save the furniture
  7. save the mark
  8. save up
  9. save versus
  10. save vs.
  11. save-all

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: save the furniture (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 furniture.ogg.

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