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sauce

1. A composition of condiments and appetizing ingredients eaten with food as a relish; especially, a dressing for meat or fish or for puddings; as, mint sauce; sweet sauce, etc. Poignant sauce. High sauces and rich spices fetched from the Indies. (Sir S. Baker)

2. 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. (Beverly)

3. Stewed or preserved fruit eaten with other food as a relish; as, apple sauce, cranberry sauce, etc. Stewed apple sauce.

4. Sauciness; impertinence. To serve one the same sauce, to retaliate in the same kind.

Origin: F, fr. OF. Sausse, LL. Salsa, properly, salt pickle, fr. L. Salsus salted, salt, p.p. Of salire to salt, fr. Sal salt. See Salt, and cf. Saucer, Souse pickle, Souse to plunge.