ずに済む details
write + get by without doing
kaka zu ni sumu
get by without doing; turn out not to have to do
meaning: end up not having to write
早めに予約したので、並ばずにすむ。
hayame ni yoyaku shita node, naraba zu ni sumu.
I booked early, so I end up not having to line up. neutral
バスがすぐ来たから、濡れなくてすんだよ。
basu ga sugu kita kara, nurenakute sunda yo.
The bus turned up right away, so I didn't end up getting soaked. casual
- colloquial
- past
- polite
Examples
get by without having to do X — an act that circumstances made unnecessary, usually to the speaker's relief
早めに予約したので、並ばずにすんだ。
hayame ni yoyaku shita node, narabazunisunda.
I booked early, so I ended up not having to line up. neutral
バスがすぐ来たから、濡れなくてすんだよ。
basu ga sugu kita kara, nurenakute sunda yo.
The bus turned up right away, so I didn't end up getting soaked. casual
早期に発見できたため、大がかりな手術をせずに済みました。
souki ni hakken dekita tame, oogakari na shujutsu o sezu ni sumimashita.
Because it was caught early, no major surgery was needed after all. formal
Formation
{V-zu-stem}ずにすむattaches to ず-stem{V-nai-stem}なくてすむattaches to ない-stem
Variant notes
- なくてすむ — the everyday spoken half of the pair, on the modern stem — しなくてすむ where the ず row spells せずにすむ.
Notes
payment never became necessary, not that it was completed. する→せずに済む
on the classical row, しなくて済む on the modern one.
Related patterns
Similar
なくてもいい grants permission to skip the act; ずに済む reports that it never became necessary — a licence versus an outcome, which is why ずに済む overwhelmingly appears in the past and なくてもいい rarely does.
ことはない is prospective advice aimed at someone still deciding ("no need to apologise"); ずに済む is a retrospective report of how things fell out, so it addresses nobody and cannot be used to tell anyone what to do.
Lookalikes
Both hang off the ず-stem and both report an act that never happened, but ずに済む frames the omission as a relief and ずじまい as a regret — reading one as the other inverts the speaker's attitude.