1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sauce

SAUCE, flavouring or seasoning for food, usually in a liquid or semi-liquid state, either served separately or mixed with the dish. The preparation of suitable sauces is one of the essentials of good cookery. The word comes through the Fr. from the Lat. salsa, salted or pickled food (salire, to season or sprinkle with sal, salt). The same Latin word has also given “saucer,” properly a dish for sauce, now a small flat plate with a depressed centre to hold a cup and so prevent the spilling of liquid, and “ sausage ” (O. Fr. saulcisse, Late Lat. salsicium), minced seasoned meat, chiefly pork, stuffed into coverings of skin. The colloquial use of “ saucy,” impertinent, “ cheeky ” is an obvious transference from the tartness or pungency of a sauce, and has a respectable literary ancestry; thus Latimer (Misc. Sel.) “when we see a fellow sturdy, lofty and proud, men say this is a saucy fellow.”