"save someone's bacon" meaning in All languages combined

See save someone's bacon on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: En-au-save someone's bacon.ogg [Australia] Forms: saves someone's bacon [present, singular, third-person], saving someone's bacon [participle, present], saved someone's bacon [participle, past], saved someone's bacon [past]
Etymology: From an archaic sense of bacon, as a slang term referring to the human body. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} save someone's bacon (third-person singular simple present saves someone's bacon, present participle saving someone's bacon, simple past and past participle saved someone's bacon)
  1. Synonym of save someone's life (in all senses). Synonyms: save someone's life [synonym, synonym-of] Related terms: pull someone's bacon out of the fire
    Sense id: en-save_someone's_bacon-en-verb-LT3zG~QG Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English predicates, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_text": "From an archaic sense of bacon, as a slang term referring to the human body.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "saves someone's bacon",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saving someone's bacon",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saved someone's bacon",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saved someone's bacon",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "save someone's bacon (third-person singular simple present saves someone's bacon, present participle saving someone's bacon, simple past and past participle saved someone's bacon)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              370,
              386
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1876, W.H.G. Kingston, The Three Commanders:",
          "text": "[A]n anxious eye had been kept on the pinnace and the vessel she was chasing. \"She's up to her,\" cried Desmond, who was looking through his glass; \"she struck without a blow, and there go our fellows tumbling on board. Little doubt, however, about her being a slaver, though, as they must have seen the way in which we got hold of this craft, they thought it as well to save their bacon, and make the best of a bad job.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              323,
              339
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1896, J.C. Hutcheson, Young Tom Bowling:",
          "text": "[T]he tide being fortunately in our favour, we reached the Saint Vincent in good time, going up the accommodation ladder on the port side, which, as you know, is devoted to the use of the lower deck portion of the crew, just as Eight Bells struck. \"Ha, my lads,\" cried the Jaunty, who stood by the entry-port, \"you've just saved your bacon!\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              34,
              63
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2010 May 27, Galen Gruman, “What Steve Ballmer needs to do to save Microsoft's mobile bacon”, in Infoworld:",
          "text": "What Steve Ballmer needs to do to save Microsoft’s mobile bacon [title]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              32,
              55
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2026 May 2, Simon Tisdall, “The king went to Washington to save Britain’s bacon. He may also have shown the US how to save itself”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "King Charles went to Washington to save Britain’s bacon. Through his example and unassuming advice, he showed the US how to save itself.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of save someone's life (in all senses)."
      ],
      "id": "en-save_someone's_bacon-en-verb-LT3zG~QG",
      "links": [
        [
          "save someone's life",
          "save someone's life#English"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "pull someone's bacon out of the fire"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "extra": "in all senses",
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "save someone's life"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-save someone's bacon.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/9e/En-au-save_someone%27s_bacon.ogg/En-au-save_someone%27s_bacon.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/En-au-save_someone%27s_bacon.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "save someone's bacon"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From an archaic sense of bacon, as a slang term referring to the human body.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "saves someone's bacon",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saving someone's bacon",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saved someone's bacon",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "saved someone's bacon",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "save someone's bacon (third-person singular simple present saves someone's bacon, present participle saving someone's bacon, simple past and past participle saved someone's bacon)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "pull someone's bacon out of the fire"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              370,
              386
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1876, W.H.G. Kingston, The Three Commanders:",
          "text": "[A]n anxious eye had been kept on the pinnace and the vessel she was chasing. \"She's up to her,\" cried Desmond, who was looking through his glass; \"she struck without a blow, and there go our fellows tumbling on board. Little doubt, however, about her being a slaver, though, as they must have seen the way in which we got hold of this craft, they thought it as well to save their bacon, and make the best of a bad job.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              323,
              339
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1896, J.C. Hutcheson, Young Tom Bowling:",
          "text": "[T]he tide being fortunately in our favour, we reached the Saint Vincent in good time, going up the accommodation ladder on the port side, which, as you know, is devoted to the use of the lower deck portion of the crew, just as Eight Bells struck. \"Ha, my lads,\" cried the Jaunty, who stood by the entry-port, \"you've just saved your bacon!\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              34,
              63
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2010 May 27, Galen Gruman, “What Steve Ballmer needs to do to save Microsoft's mobile bacon”, in Infoworld:",
          "text": "What Steve Ballmer needs to do to save Microsoft’s mobile bacon [title]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              32,
              55
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2026 May 2, Simon Tisdall, “The king went to Washington to save Britain’s bacon. He may also have shown the US how to save itself”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "King Charles went to Washington to save Britain’s bacon. Through his example and unassuming advice, he showed the US how to save itself.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of save someone's life (in all senses)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "save someone's life",
          "save someone's life#English"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "extra": "in all senses",
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "save someone's life"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-save someone's bacon.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/9e/En-au-save_someone%27s_bacon.ogg/En-au-save_someone%27s_bacon.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/En-au-save_someone%27s_bacon.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "save someone's bacon"
}

Download raw JSONL data for save someone's bacon meaning in All languages combined (3.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.