German

Noun

Sauce f ‎(genitive Sauce, plural Saucen)

1. (cooking) Synonym of Soße

English

Noun

sauce ‎(countable and uncountable, plural sauces)

1. A liquid (often thickened) condiment or accompaniment to food.

   apple sauce; mint sauce

2. (Britain, Australia) tomato sauce (similar to US tomato ketchup), as in:

   [meat] pie and [tomato] sauce

3. (slang, usually "the") Alcohol, booze.
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “chapter XVII”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:

     [...] she was thinking of her first husband, who was a heel to end all heels and a constant pain in the neck to her till one night he most fortunately walked into the River Thames while under the influence of the sauce and didn't come up for days.

   Maybe you should lay off the sauce.

4. (bodybuilding) Anabolic steroids.
5. (art) A soft crayon for use in stump drawing or in shading with the stump.
6. (Internet slang) Alternative form of source used when requesting the source of an image.
7. (dated) Cheek; impertinence; backtalk; sass.
   • 1967, Sleigh, Barbara, Jessamy, 1993 edition, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, ISBN 0 340 19547 9, page 28:

     ‘I’ll have none of your sauce, young Jessamy. Just because you’ve been took up by the family you’ve no call to give yourself airs. You’re only the housekeeper’s niece, and cook-housekeeper at that, and don’t you forgrt it. You know full well I’m parlour maid, Matchett to the gentry, Miss Matchett to you – you little —!’ Jessamy broke in anxiously. ‘But I didn’t mean it for sauce, really I didn’t:’

   • 1967, Sleigh, Barbara, Jessamy, 1993 edition, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, ISBN 0 340 19547 9, page 39:

     ‘Well, you know what Matchett’s like! Just about bring herself to talk to me because I’m housemaid, but if the gardener’s boy so much as looks at ’er it’s sauce,’ said Sarah.

8. (US, obsolete slang, 1800s) Vegetables.
   • 1833, John Neal, The Down-Easters, Volume 1:

     I wanted cabbage or potaters, or most any sort o' garden sarse … .

   • 1882, George W. Peck, “Unscrewing the Top of a Fruit Jar”, in Peck's Sunshine:

     and all would be well only for a remark of a little boy who, when asked if he will have some more of the sauce, says he "don't want no strawberries pickled in kerosene."

9. (obsolete, Britain, US, dialect) Any garden vegetables eaten with meat.
   • Beverly

     Roots, herbs, vine fruits, and salad flowers […] they dish up various ways, and find them very delicious sauce to their meats, both roasted and boiled, fresh and salt.

   • 1830, Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier, Ch. VIII:

     The first night of our expedition, we boiled our meat; and I asked the landlady for a little sauce, she told me to go to the garden and take as much cabbage as I pleased, and that, boiled with the meat, was all we could eat.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Forby to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bartlett to this entry?)

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

sauce ‎(third-person singular simple present sauces, present participle saucing, simple past and past participle sauced)

1. To add sauce to; to season.
2. To cause to relish anything, as if with a sauce; to tickle or gratify, as the palate; to please; to stimulate.
   • Shakespeare

     Earth, yield me roots; / Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate / With thy most operant poison!

3. To make poignant; to give zest, flavour or interest to; to set off; to vary and render attractive.
   • Sir Philip Sidney

     Then fell she to sauce her desires with threatenings.

4. (colloquial) To treat with bitter, pert, or tart language; to be impudent or saucy to.
   • Shakespeare

     I'll sauce her with bitter words.

Translations

See also

• bechamel
• catsup
• coulis
• gravy
• ketchup
• salsa
• soy

Anagrams

• cause, 'cause

French

Etymology

From Old French sauce, from Vulgar Latin salsa, nominal use of the feminine of Latin salsus ‎(“salted”), perfect participle of saliō ‎(“I salt”), from sāl.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [sos]

Noun

sauce f ‎(plural sauces)

1. sauce

Descendants

• Russian: со́ус m ‎(sóus)

Anagrams

• cause, causé, sceau

Old French

Etymology 1

Latin salsa, see above.

Noun

sauce f ‎(oblique plural sauces, nominative singular sauce, nominative plural sauces)

1. sauce (condiment)

Descendants

• English: sauce
• French: sauce

Etymology 2

Latin salice, see Spanish below

Noun

sauce m ‎(oblique plural sauces, nominative singular sauces, nominative plural sauce)

1. willow (tree)

Spanish

Etymology

From Old Spanish salze, from Latin salice (compare Catalan salze, Italian salice, Romanian salcie), singular ablative of salix ‎(“willow”).

Pronunciation

• (Castilian) IPA^(key): /ˈsau.θe/
• (Others) IPA^(key): /ˈsau.se/

Noun

sauce m ‎(plural sauces)

1. willow

Usage notes

• Sauce is a false friend, and does not mean the same as the English word sauce. Spanish equivalents are shown above, in the "Translations" section of the English entry sauce.

Synonyms

• salce

Derived terms

• sauzal m
• Saucedo

Related terms

• salicílico

Anagrams

• cause, causé