Word.ws English Dictionary

sauce

UK/sɔːs/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/soːs/

sauce noun: a liquid (often thickened) condiment or accompaniment to food. Also the alternative form of source.

sauce: a liquid (often thickened) condiment or accompaniment to food
Image: Cryst(a)l, Bloomington, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

sauce (countable and uncountable, plural sauces)

  1. A liquid (often thickened) condiment or accompaniment to food.
    • apple sauce; mint sauce
    • [Prince Paul.] […] But, believe me, you are wrong to run down cookery. For myself, the only immortality I desire is to invent a new sauce. I have never had time enough to think seriously about it, but I feel it is in me, I feel it is in me.1883, Oscar Wilde, Vera […]
  2. (Australia, India, New Zealand, UK) Tomato sauce (similar to US tomato ketchup), as in
    • [meat] pie and [tomato] sauce
  3. (slang, usually “the”) Alcohol, booze.
    • Maybe you should lay off the sauce.
    • […] she was thinking of her first husband, who was a heel to end all heels and a constant pain in the neck to her till one night he most fortunately walked into the River Thames while under the influence of the sauce and didn't come up for days.1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
  4. (slang, usually “the”) Vitality; capability or talent.
    • It's over for that guy. He lost the sauce.
    Synonyms:
    juice
  5. Anabolic steroids.
  6. A soft crayon for use in stump drawing or in shading with the stump.
  7. (dated) Cheek; impertinence; backtalk; sass.
    • "See here, Captain!" He planted himself squarely in front of Faramir, his hands on his hips, and a look on his face as if he was addressing a young hobbit who had offered him what he called "sauce" when questioned about visiting the orchard.1954, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, volume 2, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., published 1968, →ISBN, page 691
    • ‘Well, you know what Matchett’s like! Just about bring herself to talk to me because I’m housemaid, but if the gardener’s boy so much as looks at ’er it’s sauce,’ said Sarah.1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 39
  8. (US, obsolete, slang) Vegetables.
    • I wanted cabbage or potaters, or most any sort o' garden sarse [...]1833, John Neal, The Down-Easters: &c. &c. &c., volume 1, Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 91
    • [...] and all would be well only for a remark of a little boy who, when asked if he will have some more of the sauce, says he "don't want no strawberries pickled in kerosene."1882, George W. Peck, “Unscrewing the Top of a Fruit Jar”, in Peck's Sunshine
  9. (UK, US, dialectal, obsolete) Any garden vegetables eaten with meat.
    • Roots, herbs, vine fruits, and salad flowers […] they dish up various ways, and find them very delicious sauce to their meats, both roasted and boiled, fresh and salt.1705, Robert Beverley, The History of Virginia
    • The first night of our expedition, we boiled our meat; and I asked the landlady for a little sauce, she told me to go to the garden and take as much cabbage as I pleased, and that, boiled with the meat, was all we could eat.1830, Joseph Plumb Martin, “Ch. VIII”, in A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier

Verb

sauce (third-person singular simple present sauces, present participle saucing, simple past and past participle sauced)

  1. To add sauce to; to season.
  2. To cause to relish anything, as if with a sauce; to tickle or gratify, as the palate; to please; to stimulate.
    • Earth, yield me roots; / Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate / With thy most operant poison!c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • Meales, uſually ſavvced vvith a healthfull hunger, vvherein no incocted Crudities oppreſſe Nature, and cheriſh diſeaſe: […]1645, Jos[eph] Hall, “Sect[ion] XII. Consideration of the Benefits of Poverty.”, in The Remedy of Discontentment: Or, A Treatise of Contentation in whatsoever Condition: […], London: […] J. G. for...
  3. To make poignant; to give zest, flavour or interest to; to set off; to vary and render attractive.
    • Then fell she to sauce her desires with threatenings.a. 1587, Philippe Sidnei [i.e., Philip Sidney], “(please specify the folio)”, in [Fulke Greville; Matthew Gwinne; John Florio], editors, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia [The New Arcadia], London...
  4. (colloquial) To treat with bitter, pert, or tart language; to be impudent or saucy to.
    • I'll sauce her with bitter words.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • "A bit of real starvin' would do them no 'arm, and I would 'ave less sauce." "What, has Willie sauced you?" "Yes, when 'e woke up." […] "Wot did he say?" "Cursed me good and proper, 'e did."1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019
  5. (slang) To send or hand over.

Proper noun capitalized: SAUCE

SAUCE

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Standard Architecture for Universal Comment Extensions.

Also used as

sauce is also the alternative form of source.

sauce meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

sauce in Hindi

liquid condiment
चटनी caṭnī, सॉस sŏs

sauce in Tamil

சாஸ்

sauce in Marathi

सॉस

sauce in Urdu

liquid condiment
چَٹْنی caṭnī, ساس sās
More languagesFewer languages
sauce in Bengali
আচার acar, টক ṭok, সস śoś
sauce in Telugu
సాస్
sauce in Malayalam
സോസ്
sauce in Kannada
ಸಾಸ್
sauce in Odia
ସସ୍
sauce in Pashto
اتوب atób, تبی tǝ́bay
sauce in Tagalog
sarsa
sauce in Arabic
صَلْصَة ṣalṣa, مَرَق maraq, مَرَقَة maraqa
sauce in Malay
kuah, cicahan, colek, sos
sauce in Indonesian
saus, doksli
sauce in Thai
ซอส sɔ́ɔt, น้ำปลา nám-bplaa
sauce in Vietnamese
xốt, nước chấm, tương
sauce in Myanmar
ငါးပိရည် nga:pi.rany, ချဉ်ရည် hkyanyrany

Examples of sauce in a sentence

  • Flavouring kecap manis is an intensely personal thing, so try this version now and next time cook the sauce down with crushed, split lemongrass and a shredded lime leaf.2015 October 27, Matt Preston, The Simple Secrets to Cooking Everything Better, Plum, →ISBN, page 192:
  • I've been pretty much off the sauce during the last week, trying to get Pepper to like me again. (Horace won't drink with me any more.)1993, Tristan Hawkins, Pepper, London: Flamingo, →ISBN, page 110:

All 40 example sentences with sauce

Synonyms of sauce

13 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of sauce

Forms of sauce

Noun
pluralsauces
alternative form (obsolete)sawce
Verb
third-person singular presentsauces
present participlesaucing
past participlesauced
pastsauced

Plural of sauce: sauces

Origin of sauce

PIE word *sḗh₂l From Middle English sauce, from Old French sause, from Vulgar Latin *salsa, noun use of the feminine of Latin salsus (“salted”), past participle of saliō (“to salt”), from sal. Doublet of salsa. For the meaning development compare Ancient Greek ἥδυσμα (hḗdusma) ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swéh₂dus (whence also English sweet).

Words formed from sauce

Phrases with sauce

129 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with sauce

Questions about sauce

What does sauce mean?
Sauce means a liquid (often thickened) condiment or accompaniment to food.
What is sauce in Hindi?
Sauce in Hindi is चटनी (caṭnī), सॉस (sŏs). See Sauce meaning in Hindi.
How do you use sauce in a sentence?
Flavouring kecap manis is an intensely personal thing, so try this version now and next time cook the sauce down with crushed, split lemongrass and a shredded lime leaf.
What part of speech is sauce?
Sauce can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sauce?
Sauce is pronounced /sɔːs/ (UK).
What is the plural of sauce?
The plural of sauce is sauces.

Words near sauce in the dictionary

  1. sauba ant
  2. sauba ants
  3. saubas
  4. Sauber
  5. Saubers
  6. sauce
  7. sauce boat
  8. sauce boats
  9. sauce crayon
  10. sauce crayons
  11. sauce for the goose

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sauce (page history and authors); SAUCE (page history and authors); sauce (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sauce (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sauce (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sauce (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sauce (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sauce (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-sauce.ogg, en-us-sauce.ogg.

Cite this entry: “sauce.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sauce. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.