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.
Continental “co-production” is the secret sauce that makes U.S. manufacturing a powerhouse.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 28, 2026
But the top note, the sauce, is the silence enveloping it all, peppered by the thunder of a squall just outside.
From Salon • Jun. 28, 2026
"I was a ballet dancer so I just took my dance clothes and reinvented it. Hunger was the best sauce."
From BBC • Jun. 26, 2026
If you didn’t know what FTD meant on the menu at the Hodad’s stands at Petco Park, the burger — with cheese, onion rings, pickles, mayonnaise and barbecue sauce — still was a good time.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 26, 2026
Edamame and wild rice in a bowl with tender squash topped with lii pwayr—saskatoon berries—in a thick sauce, almost a gravy?
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
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.
