All 15 Uses of

preserve
in
Moby Dick

Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable.†
Chpt Extr

preserved = protected or kept something as it was

Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar manner.†
Chpt 1-3

Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved me; with a shock I came back to life.†
Chpt 61-63

Nor have there been wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned in the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver—an inflated bag of wind—which the endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a watery doom.†
Chpt 82-84 *

preserver = someone or something that protects something or keeps it as it is

And though now nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito glow.†
Chpt 97-99

preserved = protected or kept something as it was

Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in pickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal.†
Chpt 100-102

Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver!†
Chpt 127-129

preserver = someone or something that protects something or keeps it as it is

Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is—which was the only way he could get there—thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to himself.†
Chpt 10-12

Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its dimensioned form does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume does.†
Chpt 31-33

Oh, thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no bowels to feel fear!†
Chpt 40-42

but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent—those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end;†
Chpt 49-51

For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn.†
Chpt 52-54

The living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations.†
Chpt 55-57

Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings again.†
Chpt 70-72

The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving such valuable statistics.†
Chpt 100-102

Definitions:

(1) (preserve as in: preserve the records)
to protect something or to keep it as it is
(2) (preserve as in: preserve the peaches)
to prepare food in a way that keeps it from spoiling
(3) (preserve as in: a wildlife preserve)
protected wildlife area
(4) (preserve as in: no longer a male preserve)
something exclusive to (someone or some group) -- such as an activity or place
(5) (preserves as in: mom made preserves)
chunks of fruit cooked with sugar (like jam) and sealed (usually in a mason jar) so it will not spoil