rescue
/ˈrɛskjuː
/verb (rescues, rescuing, rescued) [with object]
1Save (someone) from a dangerous or difficult situation: firemen rescued a man trapped in the river...
- A teenager has thanked fire crews who saved his life by rescuing him from a blazing inferno.
- Firefighters had to rescue four people trapped in their vehicles.
- What makes people risk their lives to rescue someone trapped in a burning house or drowning in a river?
Synonyms
save, save from danger, save the life of, come to the aid of;
set free, free, release, liberate, extricate, get someone out;
deliver, redeem, ransom, emancipate, relieve;
bail someone out;
Nautical bring someone off
informal save someone's bacon, save someone's neck, save someone's skin
1.1 informal Keep from being lost or abandoned; retrieve: he got out of his chair to rescue his cup of coffee...
- Now that he had rescued his belongings from the desert sand and pilfering fingers, he felt like a large weight had been lifted off his shoulders so he decided to stay a few more days and give them the benefit of his expertise.
- The yellow phenotype was completely rescued in all five lines.
- When it comes to her tennis, she is bright enough to construct a point, strong enough to wallop a point and fast enough to rescue a lost cause.
Synonyms
retrieve, recover, salvage, get back;
pick up, gather up, scoop up
noun
1An act of saving or being saved from danger or difficulty: the dramatic rescue of nine trapped coal miners he came to our rescue with a loan of £100 [as modifier]: rescue workers began pulling survivors from the wreckage...
- In an amazing stroke of luck for the sick patient, all three people who came to his rescue were health workers.
- Two men passing by dramatically came to their rescue and managed to reach them using the branches from nearby trees.
- A TEENAGER'S boyfriend came to her rescue when she was dragged to the ground by another youngster on Thursday.
Synonyms
saving, rescuing;
release, freeing, liberation, extrication;
deliverance, delivery, redemption, ransom, emancipation, relief
help, assist, aid, lend a helping hand to, lend a hand to, bail out;
be someone's knight in shining armour
informal save someone's bacon, save someone's neck, save someone's skin, get someone out of a tight spot
1.1 [as modifier] Denoting or relating to a domestic animal that has been removed from a situation of abuse or neglect by a welfare organization: adopting a rescue cat may be one of the most rewarding things you will ever do some people find their ideal pet in a rescue shelter...
- I have an old rescue cat staying with me called Snowflake.
- Last night I had an unexpected trip to the vets with Cassius, our first rescue cat who's been with us nearly 2 years now.
- My grandmother had always owned a cat, and later in life she started adopting rescue cats from the local Cats Protection League.
Derivatives
rescuable
- What has now emerged is that you had 400 people - 343 firemen and the police - who died inside buildings that were empty of rescuable people.
- We selected one allele, 124, which was homozygous viable to the pharate adult stage and was rescuable with the SNAP - 25 transgene, for more detailed analysis.
- However, the phenotype was subtle and the mutants were not fully rescuable, indicating that the mutation was leaky and/or conferred semidominance.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French rescoure from Latin re- (expressing intensive force) + excutere 'shake out, discard'.
Rescue is from Old French rescoure based on Latin excutere ‘shake out, discard’. The prefix re- intensifies the sense. The notion here is of ‘shaking out’ a captive from the hands of an enemy.