saving grace, a

Idioms  

1. A redeeming quality, especially one compensating for drawbacks or negative characteristics. For example, She may not be too knowledgeable, but her saving grace is that she doesn't pretend to be. This term, dating from the late 1500s, at first referred to the concept of being saved from eternal damnation, and was used more loosely only from the late 1800s on.

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Example Sentences

Now the industry is fixated on a potential saving grace: a long-awaited software upgrade to the most popular cryptocurrency platform, Ethereum, which provides the technological backbone for thousands of crypto projects.

From New York Times

She speaks elusively about her abusive childhood and how her younger years spent exploring the woods were a saving grace, a way out of the horrors at home.

From Seattle Times

If there’s a saving grace — a silver lining to this cloud of unsuccessful elements — it’s that it’s undeniably ambitious.

From Washington Post

“It really was a saving grace. A blessing.”

From Seattle Times

West Ham, on the other hand, have looked clueless for sometime, but now have one potential saving grace: a goalscorer.

From The Guardian