sauce

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /sɔːs/, US /sɑːs/, /sɔːs/^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English sause, sauce, borrowed from Old French sauce, sausse, earlier saulse,^[2][3][4] from Vulgar Latin *salsa, a noun use of Latin salsa, feminine or neuter plural of salsus (“salted”),^[2][3][5] the past participle of sallere (“to salt”), from sāl (“salt”) (see salt),^[2][3][6] from PIE Proto-Indo-European *sal- (“salt”).^[3] The SOED notes that its etymological sense is the same as that of salad.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A liquid seasoning or condiment: 1340 in the Ayenbite of Inwyt,^[2] 1350 in the OED,^[7] mid-14th century in Etymonline, also a pickling brine.^[3]

Semantic evolution

A curative preparation, medicinal salt, is from the late 14th century.^[3] Figuratively, something that adds piquancy or zest, it is in Dunbar's poems, before 1500.^[2][7] In provincial English and the United States it was formerly any condiment, especially garden vegetables eaten with meat,^[3][8] and stewed fruit is still sauce in North America.^[9][8] Hoad derives the sense of an impudent person (16th century) and impudence (19th century) probably from saucy,^[10] which first meant savoury, but impudent from the early 16th century;^[11][10] the verb, to speak impertinently, is from 1862,^[3] and sass is an American variant.^[5] Alcoholic liquor, on the sauce, is American slang from 1940, in John O'Hara's Pal Joey.^[2][7] What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander was recorded by John Ray in 1670, who called it a woman's proverb.^[11] Saucepan is from 1686,^[2] and a saucer was in the Middle Ages a dish for sauces.^[11]

Timeline

• 1340 – a liquid seasoning.^[2]
• before 1438 – the verb, to season.^[2]
• before 1500 – something that adds zest, in Dunbar.^[2]
• 1670 – sauce for the goose, in Ray.^[11]
• 1686 – saucepan.^[2]
• 1862 – to speak impertinently to.^[3]
• 1940 – alcoholic liquor.^[2][7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A liquid or soft mixture served with food to add flavour.
2. (North America) Stewed fruit.
3. Something that adds zest or piquancy.
4. (informal) Impudent talk or behaviour; cheek.
5. (slang) Alcoholic drink: on the sauce.

Verb

1. To season or flavour with sauce.
2. (informal) To speak impudently to.

Word family

• sauceless
• sauceboat
• saucebox
• saucier
• sass
• saucepan
• saucepot
• saucy

Related words

• sauced
• saucer
• salsa
• salt
• sausage
• salad

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press