sauté

Etymology

It is borrowed from French sauté (“tossed; literally jumped, bounced”),^[2][3][4][5] the past participle of sauter (“to jump, leap”),^[6][7][8][9] from Latin saltō (“to hop, dance”),^[2][3][10] the frequentative of saliō (“to leap”).^[2][3][11] In cookery the French verb is used causatively, to make something jump, and so to toss it in the pan,^{[6][10][9][11]} which Barnhart explains by the tossing that keeps the food from lying on the surface of the pan all the time.^[3] The Latin verb is also the source of assail, insult, salacious and salient,^[10] and its noun saltus (“a leap”) of somersault.^[12][2] Etymonline traces it to a root of Proto-Indo-European of uncertain form.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A dish fried quickly in a little fat: 1813, in L. E. Ude's French Cook.^[6][8][2][3] Dictionary.com gives the range 1805–15.^[11]

Semantic evolution

English took the word first as a noun for the dish, and the verb and the adjective followed from the noun.^[3] The verb is dated 1859 by Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged,^[3][2][8] while the OED's first record is from 1868, in Warne's Model Cookery.^[6] The adjective appears in 1869, in Gouffé's Royal Cookery Book,^[6][3][2] and in the same book the French infinitive sauter was used in English as a verb.^[6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged contrasts frying in very little fat with deep frying.^[8] In ballet the word describes a step executed with a jump.^[8][13] Etymonline notes that French saut was also borrowed in the 19th century as a ballet term.^[2] The past forms are sautéed or sautéd, and the accent is sometimes dropped.^[8][13]

Timeline

• 1813 – noun, a dish fried quickly in a little fat.^[6][8][3][2]
• 1859 – verb, to fry quickly in a little fat.^[8][3][2] The OED's first record is from 1868.^[6]
• 1869 – adjective, fried quickly in a little fat.^[6][3][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dish of food fried quickly in a little fat, especially meat that is browned and then finished in a sauce.^[4][8][14]
2. (ballet) A jump off both feet that lands in the same position.^[13]

Verb

1. To fry food quickly in a little hot fat in a shallow open pan: She sautéed the mushrooms in butter.^[7][8][4]

Adjective

1. Fried quickly in a little fat until lightly browned: sauté carrots.^[4][6]
2. (ballet) Of a step, executed with a jump.^[8]

Related words

• salient
• sally
• assail
• assault
• insult
• salacious
• saltation
• somersault
• desultory

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press