Saving

How to spell saving

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce saving

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does saving mean?

1. nounAn amount of money or resource that is not spent or is kept back from a cost.
2. verbPresent participle of save: keeping something from loss, harm, or being spent.
3. adjectiveServing to redeem or compensate, as in a feature that offsets faults.

Saving in a sentence

• noun

  Buying in bulk gave us a useful saving on the weekly shop.

• verb

  She is saving every spare pound for a deposit on a flat.

• adjective

  The film was dull, but its honest ending was its one saving grace.

• noun

  Switching to the cheaper tariff produced a real saving each month.

• verb

  The lifeguard was credited with saving two swimmers that afternoon.

• adjective

  His saving quality was a willingness to admit his mistakes.

Where does saving come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the verb 'save', which English took from Old French 'sauver', itself descended from the Late Latin 'salvare', meaning 'to make safe' or 'to rescue'. That Latin verb was built on 'salvus', the adjective for 'safe, unharmed, whole', the same root that gives us 'salvage', 'salvation' and 'safe'. English adopted 'save' in the 1200s with the religious sense of rescuing the soul, and the everyday sense of keeping something from loss or harm followed soon after. By adding the familiar '-ing' ending, speakers formed both a verbal noun (the act of preserving) and the financial noun for money kept back rather than spent. The spelling is straightforward once you remember the silent 'e' of 'save' is simply dropped before the '-ing', leaving the single 'v' and one 'i'.

How the word is built

• save (from Latin salvare: to make safe)
• -ing (noun/verb suffix)