Word.ws English Dictionary

spare someone's blushes

spare someone's blushes verb: to save someone from embarrassment.

Verb

spare someone's blushes (third-person singular simple present spares someone's blushes, present participle sparing someone's blushes, simple past and past participle spared someone's blushes)

  1. (idiomatic) To save someone from embarrassment.
    • He faced us as we assembled for breakfast with a deprecating false modesty in his eyes, as who should say, "I know that I deserve all that you can say, but I pray you to spare my blushes by not saying it." His beard bristled exultantly, his chest was thrown out, and his hand was thrust into the...1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
    • Cesc Fabregas spared Arsenal's blushes with his late spot-kick2011 January 8, Chris Bevan, “Arsenal 1 - 1 Leeds”, in BBC

Forms of spare someone's blushes

third-person singular presentspares someone's blushes
present participlesparing someone's blushes
past participlespared someone's blushes
pastspared someone's blushes

Questions about spare someone's blushes

What does spare someone's blushes mean?
Spare someone's blushes means to save someone from embarrassment.
What part of speech is spare someone's blushes?
Spare someone's blushes is a verb.
What is the past tense of spare someone's blushes?
The past tense of spare someone's blushes is spared someone's blushes.

Words near spare someone's blushes in the dictionary

  1. spare ribs
  2. spare room
  3. spare room subsidy
  4. spare rooms
  5. spare someone the details
  6. spare someone's blushes
  7. spare the rod and spoil the child
  8. spare the rod and you will spoil the child
  9. spare the rod, spoil the child
  10. spare time
  11. spare tire

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spare someone's blushes (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-spare someone's blushes.ogg.

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