save-all
(ˈseɪvɔːl)
[f. save v. + all.]
1. A means for preventing loss or waste.
| a 1655 Sir T. T. de Mayerne Archimag. Anglo-Gall. Pref. (1658) 2 This Book is a Save-all; It suffers nothing to be lost. 1776 Adam Smith W.N. i. xi. iii. I. 281 [The poultry] as they are fed with what would otherwise be lost, are a meer save-all. 1870 Echo 28 Nov., Wretched shifts and savealls of reserve and recruiting systems are enough to engage their attention, so far as their war administration is concerned. |
2. A receptacle for collecting matter which would otherwise be lost and not utilized. Also attrib.
| 1797 Monthly Mag. III. 301 A refrigerator, from which proceeds an additional worm, to receive the spirit [in cooling and condensing], before it goes to the save-all. 1823 J. Badcock Dom. Amusem. 149 The fat of every kind collected in our kitchens, being rendered, or melted down from day to day, and cast into a ‘save-all tub’, will be found to produce very good soap. 1833 Loudon Encycl. Archit. §1443 There is, immediately beneath the fountain [for spirits], a saveall, or pierced plate of pewter, through which the drippings from the glasses percolate, and are collected in a shallow basin below. 1884 Health Exhib. Catal. 71/2 Front Damper acting as a ‘Tidy Betty’ with Cinder-sifter or Save-all attached. |
3. A contrivance to hold a candle-end in a candlestick while burning so that it may burn to the end; a common form is a pan with a projecting pin in the centre on which the candle-end is fixed.
| c 1645 Howell Lett. (1655) IV. xxi. 58 In som this light goes out with an ill-favor'd stench; But others have a save⁓all to preserve it from making any snuff at all. 1682 G. Hartman True Preserv. Health 348 Heat the pin of a save-all, and then thrust it into the bigger end [of a small candle], and so set it upon a candlestick. 1747 Gentl. Mag. XVII. 444/2 Death's a dark-lanthorn, life a candle's-end Stuck on a save-all, soon to end in stink. 1895 Army & Navy Price List 15 Sept. 1316/2 [Candle] Saveall, White..each 0/4½. |
4. A money-box to receive small savings or contributions. Also dial. (see quot. 1841).
| 1837 Howitt Rur. Life (1842) 228 In this manner..enter your rooms..monks with their little savealls in their hands, collecting for hospitals. 1841 Hartshorne Salopia Ant. 555 Save-all,..an earthen bottle with slits at the sides, destin'd to receive all the savings of children. |
5. A niggardly, stingy, miserly person. Now dial.
| 1785 Grose Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Saveall,..also a miser. 1820 Keats in Life II. 63 There is old Lord Burleigh, the high-priest of economy, the political save-all. |
6. Naut. A sail set under another sail or between two other sails. Also attrib.
| 1794 Rigging & Seamanship I. 83 Vessels with one mast..have..above the cross-jack, a small sail, called a save-all top-sail. 1846 in Young Naut. Dict. 1878 D. Kemp Man. Yacht Sailing 366 Save-all, a water sail; a sail set underneath booms in light weather. |
7. A pinafore; overall. dial.
| 1864 Mrs. Lloyd Ladies of Polcarrow 103 Ever since I was a boy in a save-all. 1888 J. Fothergill Lasses of Leverhouse iv. 34 The black alpaca monstrosity which I..denominated a save-all. |
8. attrib. or adj. Parsimonious, stingy.
| 1812 Southey Ess. (1832) I. 141 The paltry proceedings of those save-all politicians, who boast of their economy in banishing newspapers from the public offices. 1856 R. W. Procter Barber's Shop xi. (1883) 65 Still pursuing his save⁓all theory of a pin a day is a groat a year. |