saved by the bell

Saved or spared from difficulty or misfortune by some intervention at the very last moment. An allusion to the bell that ends the round in a boxing match saving a boxer from being counted out. The teacher was just getting ready to hand out the quizzes when the fire alarm went off—saved by the bell!

Cliché saved by the timely intervention of someone or something. (Alludes to a boxer who is saved from being counted out by the bell that ends a round.) I was going to have to do my part, but someone knocked on the door and I didn't have to do it. I was saved by the bell. I wish I had been saved by the bell.

Rescued from a difficulty at the last moment, as in I couldn't put off explaining his absence any longer, but then Bill arrived and I was saved by the bell . This expression alludes to the bell rung at the end of a boxing round, which, if it rings before a knocked-down boxer has been counted out, lets him get up and continue fighting in the next round. Its figurative use dates from the mid-1900s.

You say saved by the bell when you are in a difficult situation and at the last moment, something happens which allows you to escape from it. There was another period of silence. It was broken by the sound of Eleanor's car pulling up outside the front door. `Saved by the bell,' I said. Note: This expression refers to the bell which signals the end of a round in a boxing match.

A last-minute reprieve. The bell referred to is the one rung at the end of a round of boxing, and it “saves” the boxer who has been knocked down if it rings before he has been counted “out.” Transferring the term to other kinds of fortunate intervention dates from the mid-twentieth century. “‘Then I don’t know it,’ I told him, saved by the bell,” wrote Alan Sillitoe (The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, 1959).