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 " (0 . 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 .