Definition of "life-preserver" []

• An apparatus, made in very various forms, and of various materials, for saving one from drowning by buoying up the body while in the water. (noun)

Gnu Collaboartive International Dictionary of English: licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

• "My next memory involves being at the bottom of a Costa Rican river wondering which direction was up and holding my breath while I waited for my life-preserver to sort things out—which it did."
• "Americans are drowning, and republicans quibble about what color life-preserver we should toss them."
• "I met that aged sailorman glad-eyed and beaming, with all the simulated relief at deliverance that a drowning man would display on finding a life-preserver in his last despairing clutch."