Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A flavorful seasoning or relish served as an accompaniment to food, especially a liquid dressing or topping for food.
  • noun Stewed fruit, usually served with other foods.
  • noun Something that adds zest, flavor, or piquancy.
  • noun Informal Impudent speech or behavior; impertinence or sauciness.
  • noun Slang Alcoholic liquor.
  • transitive verb To season or flavor with sauce.
  • transitive verb To add piquancy or zest to.
  • transitive verb Informal To be impertinent or impudent to.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A condiment, as salt or mustard; now, usually, an accompaniment to food, usually liquid or soft, and highly seasoned or flavored, eaten as a relish, an appetizer, or a digestive: as, mint-sauce; white sauce; lobster-sauce; sauce piquante.
  • noun Hence, specifically Garden vegetables or roots eaten with flesh-meat: also called garden-sauce.
  • noun Fruit stewed with sugar; a compote of fruit: as, apple-sauce.
  • noun Pertness; insolence; impudence, or pert or insolent language.
  • noun The soft green or yellowish substance of a lobster. See tomalley.
  • noun A mixture of flavoring ingredients used in the preparation of tobacco and snuff.
  • To add a sauce or relish to; season; flavor.
  • To gratify; tickle (the palate).
  • To intermix or accompany with anything that gives piquancy or relish; hence, to make pungent, tart, or sharp.
  • To be saucy or pert to; treat saucily, or with impertinence; scold.
  • To cut up; carve; prepare for the table.
  • To make to pay or suffer.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A composition of condiments and appetizing ingredients eaten with food as a relish; especially, a dressing for meat or fish or for puddings
  • noun Prov. Eng. & Colloq. U.S. Any garden vegetables eaten with meat.
  • noun U.S. Stewed or preserved fruit eaten with other food as a relish
  • noun Low. Sauciness; impertinence.
  • noun [Vulgar] to retaliate in the same kind.
  • noun (Fine Art) A soft crayon for use in stump drawing or in shading with the stump.
  • transitive verb To accompany with something intended to give a higher relish; to supply with appetizing condiments; to season; to flavor.
  • transitive verb rare To cause to relish anything, as if with a sauce; to tickle or gratify, as the palate; to please; to stimulate; hence, to cover, mingle, or dress, as if with sauce; to make an application to.
  • transitive verb To make poignant; to give zest, flavor or interest to; to set off; to vary and render attractive.
  • transitive verb Colloq. or Low To treat with bitter, pert, or tart language; to be impudent or saucy to.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A liquid (often thickened) condiment or accompaniment to food
  • noun cheek, impertinence
  • noun booze, alcohol
  • noun bodybuilding anabolic steroids
  • noun US, slang, 1800s Vegetables.
  • noun art A soft crayon for use in stump drawing or in shading with the stump.
  • noun Internet slang Source; a term said when requesting the source of an image.
  • verb to add sauce to something
  • verb to act in a cheeky manner
  • preposition slang An intensifying suffix.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb dress (food) with a relish
  • verb add zest or flavor to, make more interesting
  • verb behave saucily or impudently towards
  • noun flavorful relish or dressing or topping served as an accompaniment to food

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *salsa, from Latin, feminine of salsus, past participle of sallere, to salt; see sal- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French sauce, from Vulgar Latin salsa, noun use of the feminine of Latin salsus ("salted"), past participle of saliō ("I salt"), from sal.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sauce.

Examples

  • Boil up a big pot of salted water and have your sauce cooking or reheating if you want sauce**.

    Archive 2006-08-01 2006

  • Boil up a big pot of salted water and have your sauce cooking or reheating if you want sauce**.

    What I cooked last night. 2006

  • Fettuccine alfredo is a creamy thick Parmesan sauce tossed with fettucine, delicious. * im 13 years old*** This Video Is for Sam Broman, one of my buddies from school** INGREDIENTS: 6-10 oz of heavy cream Parmesan Fettuccine Noodles 8 TBSP butter (1 stick) onion (optional) garlic (minced) chicken breast asparagus 375 degree oven ** directions for sauce** saute onions and garlic in butter until translucent then add heavy cream boil until so close to overpiling the pot then remove and add parmasan about 4-8 small handfuls and whisking between each return to stovetop turn to medium and add rest of parmasan to DESIRED thickness.

    WN.com - Articles related to New technology improves nutritional quality of leafy green veggies 2010

  • Fettuccine alfredo is a creamy thick Parmesan sauce tossed with fettucine, delicious. * im 13 years old*** This Video Is for Sam Broman, one of my buddies from school** INGREDIENTS: 6-10 oz of heavy cream Parmesan Fettuccine Noodles 8 TBSP butter (1 stick) onion (optional) garlic (minced) chicken breast asparagus 375 degree oven ** directions for sauce** saute onions and garlic in butter until translucent then add heavy cream boil until so close to overpiling the pot then remove and add parmasan about 4-8 small handfuls and whisking between each return to stovetop turn to medium and add rest of parmasan to DESIRED thickness.

    WN.com - Articles related to New technology improves nutritional quality of leafy green veggies 2010

  • The sauce pan with the secret dippin 'sauce is set over a very low burner and gets the rest of the Chicken Broth ... reduce by half to 2/3's

    Archive 2007-02-11 William "Papa" Meloney 2007

  • The sauce pan with the secret dippin 'sauce is set over a very low burner and gets the rest of the Chicken Broth ... reduce by half to 2/3's

    Kitchen Church: Long Cooked Country Ribs William "Papa" Meloney 2007

  • The word sauce comes from an ancient root word meaning “salt,” which is the original concentrated flavoring, pure mineral crystals from the sea p.

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

  • The word sauce comes via Latin from an ancient root word meaning “salt,” the primordial condiment that was prepared by the earth billions of years before early humans learned to enliven their foods with it.

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

  • The word sauce comes from an ancient root word meaning “salt,” which is the original concentrated flavoring, pure mineral crystals from the sea p.

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

  • The word sauce comes via Latin from an ancient root word meaning “salt,” the primordial condiment that was prepared by the earth billions of years before early humans learned to enliven their foods with it.

    On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • masculine noun, meaning willow tree

    October 12, 2007

  • What language, sionnach?

    November 20, 2008

  • Spanish.

    A weeping willow is sauce llorón.

    November 20, 2008

  • "Before Pickle could accomplish his escape, he was sauced with the syrup of the dormouse pie, which went to pieces in the general wreck..."

    — Smollett, Peregrine Pickle

    March 1, 2022