Sample Sentences for
preserve
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

preserve as in:  preserve the records

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    The police closed off the room to preserve the crime scene.
    preserve = keep a condition from changing
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    She took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
    preserve = protect or maintain
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    The change was made to preserve the NATO alliance.
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Show 10 more with 7 word variations
  • •
    Like I could preserve whatever I touched.  (source)
    preserve = protect; or keep from changing
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    And then the insects are preserved in amber….  (source)
    preserved = kept as they were
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    The fight for self-preservation had hardened him beyond caring.  (source)
    preservation = protection
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    I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work.  (source)
    preserving = protecting (keeping it as it is)
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    Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept down the fat and hardened his muscles; and to him, as to the cold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic and a health preserver.  (source)
    preserver = protector
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    The fish course…the bones, pushed to the side of the plate…buttermilk, by the by, preserves the softness of a lady's hands…  (source)
    preserves = protects
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    He portrays himself as a preservationist with a social conscience.†  (source)
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    I believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind…  (source)
    preserve = protect
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    The arenas are historic sites, preserved after the Games.  (source)
    preserved = protected (kept as they were)
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    My first instinct is still self-preservation.  (source)
    preservation = protection
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preserve as in:  preserve the peaches

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Salt was used to preserve the meat.
preserve = prepare food in a way to keep it from spoiling
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    My grandmother preserves peaches.
    preserves = prepares food in a way to keep it from spoiling
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    She began to clean and cook and preserve some of the food I brought in for winter.  (source)
    preserve = prepare in a way that keeps from spoiling
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    Alaskan hunters know that the easiest way to preserve meat in the bush is to slice it into thin strips and then air-dry it on a makeshift rack.  (source)
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Show 10 more with 4 word variations
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    See, Lily, honey is a preservative.  (source)
    preservative = something that keeps food from spoiling
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ative" in preservative means tending to. This is the same pattern you see in words like representative, creative, and comparative.
  • •
    Every summer Miss Katherine would pick bushels of peaches and preserve them in jars with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and other spices which she kept secret.  (source)
    preserve = prepare in a way that keeps from spoiling
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    "I am going to get up a little to-day," she says and turns to my sister, who is continually running to the kitchen to watch that the food does not burn: "And put out that jar of preserved whortleberries—you like that, don't you?" she asks me.  (source)
    preserved = prepared in a way that keeps them from spoiling (and with lots of sugar, kind of like jam)
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    At that point he gave up on preserving the bulk of the meat and abandoned the carcass to the wolves.  (source)
    preserving = preparing food in a way that keeps it from spoiling
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    Entomology smells like mothballs and oil: a preservative that, Dr. Geffard explains, is called naphthalene.  (source)
    preservative = something used to keep something else from spoiling
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    We ordered a large amount of meat (under the counter, of course) that we were planning to preserve in case there were hard times ahead.  (source)
    preserve = of food: prepare it in a way that keeps it from spoiling
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    Master Micawber was hardly visible in a Guernsey shirt, and the shaggiest suit of slops I ever saw; and the children were done up, like preserved meats, in impervious cases.  (source)
    preserved = prepared food in a way that keeps it from spoiling
  • •
    He suggested that she increase the proportion of preservative that she used.†  (source)
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    The cans were coated with dust and starting to rust, but we figured the food was still safe to eat, since the whole point of canning was to preserve.  (source)
    preserve = prepare food in a way that keeps it from spoiling
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    It was a flaking three-story house in the ancient part of the city, a century old if it was a day, but like all houses it had been given a thin fireproof plastic sheath many years ago, and this preservative shell seemed to be the only thing holding it in the sky "Here we are!"†  (source)
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preserve as in:  a wildlife preserve

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The land was donated to the state so it could forever remain a wildlife preserve.
preserve = protected wildlife area
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    We visited the wildlife preserve.
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    Making it the largest private animal preserve in North America.  (source)
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    He tells them he's building a wildlife preserve.  (source)
    preserve = a place where conditions are kept as they were to protect wildlife
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Show 9 more with 2 word variations
  • •
    He was the man in that forest preserve who did all the talking, wasn't he?  (source)
    preserve = a place where conditions are kept as they were to protect wildlife
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    Bird sanctuaries are large preserves.  (source)
    preserves = places where conditions are kept as they were to protect wildlife
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    This was her nature preserve, a cramped room with a couple of sofas and chairs, where she sat and yakked with the night staff about coffee prices and unsafe streets and the burn victim with the smell you can't describe—this was the handgrip, the safehold she needed to live.  (source)
    preserve = a place where conditions are maintained to protect wildlife
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    There had been things to conceal within that Oriental wildlife preserve, so it was protected by an all but impassable government barrier.  (source)
    preserve = a place where conditions are kept as they were to protect wildlife
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    Supposedly to set up a biological preserve.  (source)
    preserve = a place where conditions are maintained to protect wildlife
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    If they were conspirators — and everything he had seen and heard from Shenzhen to Tian an men Square to this wildlife preserve would seem to confirm it — the conspiracy reached into the hierarchy of Beijing.  (source)
    preserve = a place where conditions are kept as they were to protect wildlife
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    Up the coast there, you see the Cabo Blanco preserve.  (source)
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    Going to be a biological preserve.  (source)
    preserve = a place where conditions are maintained to protect wildlife
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    It's a wildlife preserve and gunnery range.  (source)
    preserve = a place where conditions are kept as they were to protect wildlife
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preserve as in:  no longer a male preserve

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At that time, Yoga was the preserve of India's highest-caste men.
preserve = an activity done exclusively by a group
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    Once an all-male preserve, the club now is now half female.
    preserve = a place exclusive to a group
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    Owning a private jet is the preserve of the rich.
    preserve = something exclusive to a group
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    At any rate, very few Indians were converted, and the Salem folk believed that the virgin forest was the Devil's last preserve, his home base and the citadel of his final stand.  (source)
    preserve = place of control
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Show 6 more
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    On the second floor was Alpha Group's overflowing Registry— Rousseau preferred old-fashioned paper dossiers to digital files—and the third and fourth floors were the preserve of the agent runners.  (source)
    preserve = a place exclusive to a group
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    In puzzling over that challenge, Allan Rosenfield kept thinking back to his experience as a young doctor in Thailand, when he trained midwives to offer services that normally were the preserve only of physicians.  (source)
    preserve = something exclusive to
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    He took less care of his appearance and less notice of his surroundings, he lunched in the canteen which was normally the preserve of junior staff, and it was obvious that he was drinking.  (source)
    preserve = something exclusive to a group
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    The world of classical music—particularly in its European home—was until very recently the preserve of white men.  (source)
    preserve = an activity done exclusively by a group
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    This is a great tract of a hundred thousand acres, which from time immemorial has been a hunting preserve of the nobility.  (source)
    preserve = a place exclusive to a group
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    Now I am in the garden at the back, beyond the yard where the empty pigeon-house and dog-kennel are — a very preserve of butterflies, as I remember it, with a high fence, and a gate and padlock; where the fruit clusters on the trees, riper and richer than fruit has ever been since, in any other garden, and where my mother gathers some in a basket, while I stand by, bolting furtive gooseberries, and trying to look unmoved.  (source)
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preserves as in:  mom made preserves

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My grandmother made preserves.
preserves = chunks of fruit cooked with sugar so they will not spoil
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    Preserves have more fruit than jam.
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    In jam, the fruit comes in the form of fruit pulp or crushed fruit. In preserves, the fruit comes in the form of chunks in a gel or syrup.
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    Your dinner is in the oven, Anne, and you can get yourself some blue plum preserve out of the pantry.  (source)
    preserve = fruit cooked with sugar (like jam)
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Show 10 more with 2 word variations
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    I load a plate with eggs, sausages, batter cakes covered in thick orange preserves, slices of pale purple melon.  (source)
    preserves = fruit cooked with sugar (like jam)
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    In vain she nibbled at the bread and butter and pecked at the crab-apple preserve out of the little scalloped glass dish by her plate.  (source)
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    Inside were fifteen pastries, separated by squares of wax paper and stuffed with strawberry preserves.  (source)
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    Samantha says that her strawberry preserves, which you loved so much as a Boy, continue as good as ever, and you should hurry back for a taste of them, before she "crosses over the river," as she puts it;  (source)
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    The doors to the pantry stood open, and Eliza's crocks of preserves, the sugar cone, and her spice cabinet were missing.  (source)
    preserves = fruit cooked with sugar and sealed (usually in a jar) so it will not spoil
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    There's strawberry preserves, if you want them.  (source)
    preserves = fruit cooked with sugar (like jam)
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    He had horse meat salted and pork smoked, and set the women to making fruit preserves.  (source)
    preserves = fruit cooked with sugar and sealed (usually in a jar) so it will not spoil
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    You would put strawberry preserves on the popovers, which forget it, all life from the Renaissance onward it pales by compare.  (source)
    preserves = fruit cooked with sugar (like jam)
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    "Mother Elena has been here as long as I have," our headmistress says, packing a jar of plum preserves neatly into the basket.  (source)
  • •
    "The Lord preserves the simple" was Mom's response when I mentioned this to her.†  (source)
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