sauce
Americannoun
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any preparation, usually liquid or semiliquid, eaten as a gravy or as a relish accompanying food.
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stewed fruit, often puréed and served as an accompaniment to meat, dessert, or other food.
cranberry sauce.
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something that adds piquance or zest.
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Informal. sauciness; impertinence; impudence.
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Slang. Usually the sauce hard liquor.
He's on the sauce again.
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Archaic. garden vegetables eaten with meat.
verb (used with object)
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to dress or prepare with sauce; season.
meat well sauced.
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to make a sauce of.
Tomatoes must be sauced while ripe.
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to give piquance or zest to.
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to make agreeable or less harsh.
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Informal. to speak impertinently or saucily to.
noun
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any liquid or semiliquid preparation eaten with food to enhance its flavour
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anything that adds piquancy
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stewed fruit
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dialect vegetables eaten with meat
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informal impudent language or behaviour
verb
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to prepare (food) with sauce
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to add zest to
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to make agreeable or less severe
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informal to be saucy to
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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saucesimple
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saucessimple
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have saucedperfect
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has saucedperfect
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am saucingprogressive
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are saucingprogressive
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is saucingprogressive
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have been saucingperfect progressive
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has been saucingperfect progressive
Past
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saucedsimple
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had saucedperfect
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was saucingprogressive
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were saucingprogressive
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had been saucingperfect progressive
Future
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”; see also salt 1
Explanation
A sauce is a nearly-liquid or soft topping or condiment for food. You might prefer your spaghetti with tomato sauce and your broccoli with cheese sauce. The cuisine of every country and region has its own sauces, from chutney served with Indian dosas to Hollandaise sauce on eggs Benedict and caramel sauce dolloped on sticky toffee pudding. You can even use sauce as a fancy verb: "Shall I sauce the beef?" Figuratively, to sauce someone is to speak in an impudent or cheeky way.
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.
See Examples For:
She said it was "a tough one because I have a lot of palettes to appease", with her British-born husband favouring "meat, potatoes and cream sauce" while she preferred grilled fish.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
Add a tablespoon of soy sauce and a tablespoon of chicken stock or water, cover the pan and cook.
From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026
But the empire of ranch is much bigger than a bottle of the original sauce.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
"Guess the bottom line is…I could keep my focus and nerve all four days to finish it off," he messaged when I asked for the secret sauce.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
After all, he’d had a furious outburst just because he’d wanted roast beef instead of puttanesca sauce.
From "The Bad Beginning" by Lemony Snicket
Emma Robins, from Reading, says broccoli hidden in pesto pasta is a favourite for her three-year-old son Alfred, as well as veg pulsed into pasta sauces.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
A guest uses a silicon brush to apply sauces onto an entree, a nod to abstractionist Jackson Pollock.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
One trigger people tend to forget: red-meat stock used in a lot of sauces and broths in restaurants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
The menu overhaul also includes more than 20 new sauces, as well as new drinks.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 16, 2026
It’s in the salad dressing too, and the sauces for the nuggets, not to mention Isaac’s dessert.
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
Ferrell said later that he was glad to be in the back row because it meant nobody behind him got sauced.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
The capers themselves are fried to create a crisp garnish for the sauced asparagus.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 12, 2023
Taste a sauced noodle, and adjust the seasoning again if needed.
From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2023
Riding the wave of an obsessive interest in all forms of fried chicken, crispy chicken skins are the base for nachos at pop-ups, and sauced and spiced as appetizers in restaurants.
From New York Times ● Dec. 27, 2022
"Her page. She invites you to sup with her again. There's to be a haunch of venison, she says, a brace of stuffed geese sauced with mulberries, and—" "—her daughter," Tyrion finished sourly.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Of this generous, very pretty platter, my only sorrow was an uneven saucing, leaving one side somewhat bereft of the overall excellence.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023
Little did she know that I did, and obviously still do, find a deep, personal satisfaction with all things chopping, sauteing, saucing, cooking and roasting.
From Salon ● Feb. 26, 2023
Ms. Sarikaya laughed and then the two of them discussed whether to blanch noodles before saucing them; Ms. Olsen prefers a quick boil, while Ms. Sarikaya worries that it will leave the noddles too watery.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2017
But for the last couple of weeks, two guys known for making pizzas in Altadena have been frying and saucing excellent chicken wings out of a corner of the store.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2016
You're a good fellow, Philip, and I beg your pardon for saucing you.
From A Great Emergency and Other Tales by Ewing, Juliana Horatia Gatty
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.
