Sauce Definition & Meaning

American

British

Idioms

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Examples

Related Words

Synonyms sauce American [saws] / sɔs /

noun

1. any preparation, usually liquid or semiliquid, eaten as a gravy or as a relish accompanying food.

2. stewed fruit, often puréed and served as an accompaniment to meat, dessert, or other food.

   cranberry sauce.

3. something that adds piquance or zest.

4. Informal. sauciness; impertinence; impudence.

5. Slang. Usually the sauce hard liquor.

   He's on the sauce again.

6. Archaic. garden vegetables eaten with meat.

verb (used with object)

sauced, saucing

1. to dress or prepare with sauce; season.

   meat well sauced.

2. to make a sauce of.

   Tomatoes must be sauced while ripe.

3. to give piquance or zest to.

4. to make agreeable or less harsh.

5. Informal. to speak impertinently or saucily to.

sauce British / sɔːs /

noun

1. any liquid or semiliquid preparation eaten with food to enhance its flavour

2. anything that adds piquancy

3. stewed fruit

4. dialect vegetables eaten with meat

5. informal impudent language or behaviour

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

1. to prepare (food) with sauce

2. to add zest to

3. to make agreeable or less severe

4. informal to be saucy to

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 sauce Idioms

More idioms and phrases containing sauce

• hit the bottle (sauce)

Other Word Forms

• oversauce verb (used with object)
• sauceless adjective

Etymology

Origin of sauce

First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Middle French, from Late Latin salsa, noun use of feminine of Latin salsus “salted,” past participle of sallere “to salt,” derivative of sāl “salt”; salt 1

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

If your pot feels thin or underpowered, it may be craving something savory — a spoonful of bouillon, a splash of soy sauce, a handful of mushrooms.

From Salon

"It's the crunch, it's the visuals, it's the sauce, it's the different ways you can have it," Till says.

From BBC

Belton wrote in a note that for software, it was never the code itself which was the “secret sauce” or “competitive advantage.”

From MarketWatch

At home, he noticed small things, like her forgetting to add the meat to the spaghetti sauce.

From The Wall Street Journal

From a gas leak to a hot sauce factory, many cities in the area have dealt with odd, unpleasant odors over the years.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• dressing
• flavoring
• gravy
• relish

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.