sauce
Americannoun
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sauces
plural
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any preparation, usually liquid or semiliquid, eaten as a gravy or as a relish accompanying food.
-
stewed fruit, often puréed and served as an accompaniment to meat, dessert, or other food.
cranberry sauce.
-
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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sauces,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sauced,
past participle, past
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saucing
present participle
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to dress or prepare with sauce; season.
meat well sauced.
-
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
-
any liquid or semiliquid preparation eaten with food to enhance its flavour
-
anything that adds piquancy
-
stewed fruit
-
dialect vegetables eaten with meat
-
informal impudent language or behaviour
verb
-
to prepare (food) with sauce
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to add zest to
-
to make agreeable or less severe
-
informal to be saucy to
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
saucesimple
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saucessimple
-
have saucedperfect
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has saucedperfect
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am saucingprogressive
-
are saucingprogressive
-
is saucingprogressive
-
have been saucingperfect progressive
-
has been saucingperfect progressive
Past
-
saucedsimple
-
had saucedperfect
-
was saucingprogressive
-
were saucingprogressive
-
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:
They both want to claim top honours, but Pierce feels he will have the edge if he can get the peppercorn sauce recipe off the chef at QPR.
From BBC ● Nov. 10, 2026
I served it with toasted sourdough tips for scooping up all that lovely sauce.
From Salon ● Nov. 5, 2026
“These days you often get a brown sauce substitute. You’ve got to take your own.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2026
For my caviar pasta: I like a very clean white sauce, with not a lot of flour.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2026
He sautéed onions and garlic in olive oil for marinara sauce.
From "Millionaires for the Month" by Stacey McAnulty
A group of conservative German MEPs are also seeking a specific carve-out for meat names in snacks and sauces in separate legislation, external currently making its way through the European Parliament.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
They appear in sauces, salads, and cocktails, and even serve as colorful seasonal decorations.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 29, 2026
The new store in Duarte has a SushiOro, an in-store sushi market featuring rolls and signature sauces developed by Vallarta’s chefs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026
We’ve also spent the past few weeks of Soup School discussing crunchy toppings, bright sauces and edible confetti, if you’d like a little extra inspiration.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2026
Always perfectly seasoned, typically served with delicious gravies or sauces.
From "Fablehaven" by Brandon Mull
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 omakase tower offers a selection of sushi, tuna tartare, spicy tuna crispy rice, sashimi, and rolls — perfect for those who enjoy heavily sauced sushi.
From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2025
The capers themselves are fried to create a crisp garnish for the sauced asparagus.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 12, 2023
Mile 11 of Interstate 55, in Memphis, was sauced up.
From New York Times ● Aug. 31, 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
How does one cram the time capsule of an entire seasoning and saucing life into a 32-quart Igloo?
From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2022
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
They talked back to subscribers, saucing off, uttering facetious remarks, and generally giving lip.
From The Hacker Crackdown, law and disorder on the electronic frontier by Bruce Sterling
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