sauce (French)

Where does "sauce" come from?

The French noun 'sauce' is inherited from Old French 'sause', which itself derives from Vulgar Latin '*salsa'[1][3]. This Vulgar Latin term originated as a nominal use of the feminine form of Latin 'salsus', meaning 'salted'[1][3]. The Latin adjective 'salsus' is the participle of 'sallō', meaning 'to salt', which stems from the noun 'sāl', meaning 'salt'[1][2][4]. Going back further, 'sāl' traces through Proto-Italic '*sāls' to the Proto-Indo-European root '*séh₂ls'[5].

Open questions

The transition from an earlier form to *saldō and the subsequent phonetic development to *salssos in Latin are reconstructed developments. [2]
The contrast between the long vowel in the nominative singular and the short vowel in oblique forms of sāl has been interpreted as an archaic ablaut pattern. [5]

Full etymology tree

sauce (French), 'sauce'
- inherited sause (Old French), 'sauce (condiment)'
  - inherited *salsa (Latin), 'inflection of salsus:'
    - derived salsus (Latin), 'salty, briny'
      - inherited *salssos (Latin)
        inherited *sald-tos (Latin)
        derived *saldō (Latin)
        inherited *saldō (Proto-Italic)
        derived *séh₂ls (Proto-Indo-European), 'salt'
      - derived sal (Latin), 'salt'
        inherited *sāls (Proto-Italic), 'salt'
        inherited *séh₂ls (Proto-Indo-European), 'salt'

Ancestors

sause (Old French)
salsa (Latin)
salsus (Latin)

Descendants and derived words

sovs (Danish)
saus (Dutch)
allonger la sauce (French)
à toutes les sauces (French)
mettre à toutes les sauces (French)
sauce andalouse (French)
sauce aurore (French)
sauce béchamel (French)
sauce blanche (French)
sauce brune (French)
sauce de soja (French)
sauce tartare (French)

Related words

cuillère (French)

Sources

Updated October 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris