conserve
Verbconserves, conserving, conserved
Noun pluralconserves
Formsconserves, conserving, conserved
Pluralconserves
- 1To save something for later use, sometimes by treating it with a preservative.
Campers learn to conserve fuel by cooking only once a day.
The family conserved the fall harvest in jars of vinegar and brine.
Similarsave, preserve, husband, store
Note
The verb of careful use: what is conserved is held back so that it lasts, such as fuel, water or a food supply. A 1946 railway article describes conserving the water supply by condensing, and fruit can be conserved with sugar, the use behind the jam. John Strype in 1721 applies it to friendship, amity "they meant to conserve and maintain," where it sits close to keep.
- 2To protect an environment, a cultural heritage, or other valued things from harm.
The trust raised funds to conserve the medieval cathedral's stained glass.
New state laws conserve wetlands that migratory birds depend on.
Similarprotect, preserve, safeguard, maintain
Oppositedestroy, damage, neglect
Note
Here the aim is protection rather than thrift. The resource-saving verb holds something back so it can be used later. This one keeps a wetland, a building or a tradition intact for its own sake. It is the verb of heritage work. Robin Leleux, writing in 2021 about restoration awards, credits a project with conserving a historic station building by bringing it back into use.
- 3A jam or thick syrup made by cooking fruit.
She served the scones with clotted cream and a cherry conserve.
The orchard sells small-batch conserves made from late-season plums.
Note
The everyday sense, and the one the Latin root explains best. Conservare means "to keep, preserve," and fruit cooked down is fruit kept. In 1709 Richard Steele has a fine lady resolve to "study broths, plasters, and conserves." The jar of fruit sits there beside a soup and a poultice, which shows how close it once stood to the apothecary's sugared remedy.
- 4To remain unchanged during a physical or chemical process.
In an isolated system, total momentum conserves during every collision.
Electric charge must conserve in any reaction, no matter how the particles rearrange.
Note
Physics and chemistry use the verb intransitively, with the quantity itself as the subject. Energy, momentum or charge conserves when its total stays the same through a collision or reaction in an isolated system, which is what a conservation law asserts. Watch the grammar: nothing is doing the conserving, so the verb takes no object, and the everyday "save" meaning does not apply.
- 5
Less common meanings
- 6A medicinal confection made by mixing freshly gathered plant matter with finely powdered refined sugar.
The apothecary kept jars of rose conserve on hand for inflamed throats.
Her physician prescribed a conserve of violets to lift her spirits.
Note
A word for the apothecary's shelf rather than the pantry, and now obsolete. Freshly gathered flowers, herbs or fruit were beaten into fine sugar to make a remedy, as in conserve of roses. In older medical or household writing, read it as medicine. In modern English the word means only the fruit preserve, and sugar is the thread that joins the two.
- 7A conservatory; a glassed structure in which plants are sheltered and grown.
The estate's conserve sheltered orange trees through the harsh northern winters.
She wintered her tender plants in the conserve beside the south wall.
Note
An obsolete name for the sheltered building where tender plants spend the winter. Conservatory and greenhouse replaced it long ago. John Evelyn's Elysium Britannicum (c. 1700) still uses it for that building, writing of water "alwayes placed in the Conserve." A modern reader would take the word to mean jam, so anyone describing such a building today should write conservatory.
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Practice
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Origin
It comes from Middle English conserven, from Old French conserver, from Latin conservare ("to keep, preserve"), built from the intensive prefix com- and servo ("keep watch, maintain").