Save time means to spend less time on something. People often use it to explain why they do things a certain way: to save time. You can name the amount directly: save an hour, save ten minutes.
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save time; save time on + noun/-ing; save + person + an hour/a lot of time; to save time
- I make my lunch the night before to save time in the morning.
- Learning a few keyboard shortcuts can save you a lot of time at work.
- We took the motorway to save time, but there was a huge traffic jam.
What changed
First versionI pay all my bills online to economise time.
RevisionI pay all my bills online to save time.
Economise may look like a fitting verb, but it doesn't go with time: it means spending less money or fewer resources, usually with on (economise on heating). For time, English uses save, so economise was changed to save.
The person who gets the extra time comes straight after save, with no for: The new bus route saves me twenty minutes every morning. The same pattern works with money and trouble: It saved us a lot of trouble.
Your turn
Taking a taxi to the airport instead of two buses will ___ us at least an hour.
Show the answer
save — A taxi instead of two buses makes the journey shorter and gives us an extra hour: save us an hour. Economise can't be followed by an amount of time or by a person.
Write about a habit or an app that helps you save time: say what it is and how much time it saves you.
Ordering groceries through an app saves me about two hours every week.
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