save-all

American  

[sayv-awl] / ˈseɪvˌɔl /

noun

1. a means, contrivance, or receptacle for preventing loss or waste.

2. Older Use. overalls.

3. Nautical.

   1. a net secured between a pier and a ship, beneath cargo being transferred from one to the other.

   2. a sail for utilizing wind spilled from the regular sails of a vessel: used in very light winds.

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save-all British  

noun

1. a device to prevent waste or loss

2. nautical

   1. a net used while loading a ship

   2. a light sail set to catch wind spilling from another sail

3. dialect overalls or a pinafore

4. a dialect word for miser 1

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Etymology

Origin of save-all

First recorded in 1635–45; noun use of verb phrase save all

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

save-all

Another curious illuminating appurtenance was called a save-all or candle-wedge.

From Customs and Fashions in Old New England by Alice Morse Earle

A save-all, or small sail, set occasionally under the lower studding-sail or driver-boom, in a fair wind and smooth sea.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher

A prayer-book, which he seldom handles A save-all and two farthing candles.

From The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2 by William Ernst Browning

For this reason the trough into which it falls from the revolving "wire" is called the "save-all."

From A Book of Exposition by Homer Heath Nugent

All candles, whatever their material, were carefully used by the economical colonists to the last bit by a little wire frame of pins and rings called a save-all.

From Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle

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