Word.ws English Dictionary

to save one's life

to save one's life phrase: at all. (Used with "can't", "couldn't" etc. to emphasize a lack of skill.).

Phrase

to save one's life

  1. (informal) At all. (Used with "can't", "couldn't" etc. to emphasize a lack of skill.)
    • I can't dance to save my life.
    • After she began to have a Governoress for Stuyvesant Jimpson and an Imported Nurse for the little Evelyn Jimpson her memory began to blur in spots and she couldn’t have done up the Dishes to save her life.1902 September 7, George Ade, “Modern Fables By George Ade. The Modern Fable of the Troubles of the Unemployed and the Danger of Changing from Bill to Harold.”, in Idaho Daily Statesman, Boise, Ida....
  2. (excessive, informal) Under any circumstances; [I'd] rather die than ... (Used with "will not", "would not" etc. to emphasize refusal.)
    • She wouldn't eat baked beans to save her life.

Synonyms of to save one's life

Questions about to save one's life

What does to save one's life mean?
To save one's life means at all. (Used with "can't", "couldn't" etc. to emphasize a lack of skill.).
What part of speech is to save one's life?
To save one's life is a phrase.

Words near to save one's life in the dictionary

  1. to perfection
  2. to pieces
  3. to put it another way
  4. to reckon with
  5. to rights
  6. to save one's life
  7. to say nothing of
  8. to say the least
  9. to scale
  10. to some extent
  11. to someone's credit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: to save one's life (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:

Cite this entry: “to save one's life.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/to_save_one%27s_life. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.