Meaning of life preserver | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A buoyant ring or vest intended to keep a person afloat.
   US
2. A short club with a weighted end.
   UK, dated
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see life, preserver.

Equivalents

Examples

“Here's your crowbar / And your centre-bit; / Your life-preserver— / You may want to hit!”

“But when I gave him every particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster, and took down a life-preserver from the wall. I knew my man, however, and I clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike.”

“In such cases, the story is told to illustrate some main truth, which, in this case, is the beer-drinking habit of the people. By this faith, that beer is a life preserver, the English live, and by this they die.”

“Drink as a Life Preserver.—A report on the inquiry into the connection of disease with habits of intemperance, prepared by Dr. Isambard Owen, secretary of the investigation committee of the British Medical Association, gives some startling statistics for temperance people. Particulars have been obtained by the committee of 4234 cases of deceased lives, aged 25 and upwards, in which the habits of the person in regard to alcohol were recorded in five classes—total abstainers, habitually temperate, careless drinkers, free drinkers, and decidedly intemperate.”

“In a very similar way, in the early, barbarous, unsanitary condition of society, alcohol obtained credit as a life preserver which was not merited by any virtues the drug itself possessed.”

“Sleep a Life Preserver / During sleep the pulse is slowed and all the life processes slackened to a pronounced degree. The winter sleep of plants and of hibernating animals no doubt greatly contributes to their life duration.”

CEFR level