sausage
Americannoun
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sausages
plural
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minced pork, beef, or other meats, often combined, together with various added ingredients and seasonings, usually stuffed into a prepared intestine or other casing and often made in links.
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Aeronautics. a sausage-shaped observation balloon, formerly used in warfare.
noun
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finely minced meat, esp pork or beef, mixed with fat, cereal or bread, and seasonings ( sausage meat ), and packed into a tube-shaped animal intestine or synthetic casing
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an object shaped like a sausage
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informal aeronautics a captive balloon shaped like a sausage
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nothing at all
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of sausage
1400–50; late Middle English sausige < dialectal Old French sausiche < Late Latin salsīcia, neuter plural of salsīcius seasoned with salt, derivative of Latin salsus salted. See sauce, -itious
Compare meaning
How does sausage compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Sausage is a food made from meat that's minced or ground, flavored with seasonings, and encased in a thin skin. It's best not to think too much about what lives inside a sausage casing; just enjoy eating it. There are many kinds of sausage, some of which are sold raw, some cooked, and others smoked, cured, or dried. Traditionally, sausages have been a way to avoid waste, by using the less appealing parts of a butchered pig or cow, and a practical way to preserve meat so that it doesn't have to be cooked immediately or frozen. In the mid-fifteenth century, the word was spelled sawsyge, from a Latin root, salsus, or "salted."
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:
Use hot Italian sausage, Mexican or Spanish chorizo, longganisa, or no sausage at all.
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2026
Late Friday night, when the last whistle blew at the sausage factory, the Newsom exemption had been pulled back.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2026
Just sausage, pepper, onion: one future dinner, still undecided.
From Salon ● Aug. 25, 2026
Just over a year later, in June 2022, Jeremy died after eating a beef sausage on a camping trip with friends at a beach north of Sydney.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
I slam my cutlery down, a nub of sausage impaled on the fork.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
Researchers examined a wide range of products commonly available to UK shoppers, including burgers, vegetarian chicken pieces, vegan sausages, and oat, almond and soy-based milks.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 28, 2026
The transformation is visible everywhere: from supermarket shelves stocked with ultra-processed foods to pizzerias selling slices piled high with chips, sausages and fried snacks.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026
The crab curry is so delicious and they do these street food sausages that we crave.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2026
Its signature breakfast included two sausages, two rashers of bacon and two fried eggs, with sautéed potatoes, baked beans and a grilled tomato for good measure.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
When we had the money, we’d have bloodwurst or knockwurst and sauerkraut or sausages with baked potatoes and cabbage.
From "Bad Boy" by Walter Dean Myers
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.
