- sauce (n.)
- mid-14c., from Old French sauce, sausse, from noun use of Latin salsa, fem. singular or neuter plural of salsus "salted," from past participle of Old Latin sallere "to salt," from sal (genitive salis) "salt" (see salt (n.)).
Meaning "something which adds piquancy to words or actions" is recorded from c.1500; sense of "impertinence" first recorded 1835 (see saucy, and cf. sass). Slang meaning "liquor" first attested 1940. Colloquial saucebox "one addicted to making saucy remarks" is from 1580s.