Safe

How to spell safe

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce safe

What does safe mean?

1. adjectiveProtected from or not exposed to danger, harm, or risk.
2. nounA strong, lockable box or cabinet used for storing money and valuables securely.

Safe in a sentence

• adjective

  The children felt safe once the storm had passed.

• noun

  The hotel room had a small safe bolted inside the wardrobe.

• adjective

  Keep your passport in a safe place while travelling.

• noun

  She kept the family jewellery locked in the safe.

Where does safe come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word safe entered English in the 1200s from Old French sauf, meaning 'unharmed' or 'secure', which descended directly from the Latin adjective salvus, meaning 'uninjured, healthy, or whole'. That same Latin root gives us a surprising family of relatives, including 'salvage', 'salvation', and the toast 'salud', all carrying the underlying idea of being kept sound and intact. The original sense in English was simply 'free from danger or injury', and over the following centuries it broadened to describe anything that could be relied upon not to cause harm. The noun sense, a strong box for guarding money and valuables, only emerged in the 1600s, naming the object by the protection it provides. The clean, short spelling hides its Latin pedigree because French and English steadily wore the bulkier salvus down to a single tidy syllable.

How the word is built

• safe (from Latin salvus: uninjured, healthy, whole), borrowed via Old French sauf