Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

to save one's life

Idioms  

  1. Even if one's life depended on it, as in I couldn't eat another bite to save my life, or Betty wouldn't climb a mountain to save her life. This hyperbolic expression nearly always follows a negative statement that one wouldn't or couldn't do something. Anthony Trollope used a slightly different wording in The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848): “I shan't remain long, if it was to save my life and theirs; I can't get up small talk for the rector and his curate.”

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

As for the wood, it was a good shelter to save one's life, but was so thick there was no passing it on horseback.

From Memoirs of a Cavalier A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England. From the Year 1632 to the Year 1648. by Defoe, Daniel

Thus, one would be bound to undergo an operation for appendicitis in order to save one's life.

From Moral Theology A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities by Callan, Charles Jerome

As well wrap oneself confidingly in the folds of a boa-constrictor, hoping to save one's life thereby.

From Oscar Wilde: Art and Morality A Defence of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Mason, Stuart

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.