saucer
Americannoun
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a small, round, shallow dish to hold a cup.
-
something resembling a saucer, as in shape.
noun
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a small round dish on which a cup is set
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any similar dish
Other Word Forms
- saucerful noun
- saucerless adjective
Etymology
Origin of saucer
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English word from Old French word saussier. See sauce, -er 2
Explanation
A saucer is a small, rounded dish that sits beneath a tea or coffee cup. Other kinds of saucers include objects with a similar round shape — like a flying saucer. Saucers that live under cups are useful for catching drips from and protecting the table. Many mugs and cups come without saucers, but the cups in a traditional tea service have matching saucers, and coffee cups at a restaurant or cafe are also frequently served with saucers. Objects with a similar round shape can also be called saucers, including flying saucers and saucer-shaped TV antennas. The very earliest saucers were small sauce dishes, and the word stems from the Latin salsus, or "sauce."
Vocabulary lists containing saucer
Novel Study: Ten Days in a Mad-House, Chapters I–X
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Selection Vocabulary 3, Unit 6
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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.
In a work on paper, a flying saucer shoots neon-orange beams at a nuclear power plant.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026
Among the munitions were dozens of thick, green plastic discs about the diameter of a saucer.
From BBC • Aug. 20, 2025
She cited an old adage: The House of Representatives is the hot tea, and the Senate is the saucer where things cool down.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 16, 2024
Another spacecraft will then snag the samples and send them to Earth, where they’ll fall to the same Utah desert where Hays watched the saucer drop last year.
From Salon • Mar. 29, 2024
Hila swirled the grounds at the base of the cup before tipping it out onto her own saucer.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
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.
