sauces

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of sauce.

   The restaurant offers a dozen different sauces to go with its dumplings.

   She keeps several hot sauces lined up in the refrigerator door.

   Note

   A plural that usually counts kinds rather than amounts. Sauce on its own is often a mass noun (some sauce, too much sauce), so sauces tends to mean several varieties: a menu's sauces, a shelf of hot sauces. Because the singular already ends in a silent e, only -s is added, yet speech gains a full syllable. The same spelling also serves as the verb form, as in she sauces the pasta.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of sauce.

   The cook sauces every dish with a steady, practiced hand.

   This recipe sauces the meat twice while it roasts.

   Note

   Here the form follows he, she or it, and the verb behind it usually means adding sauce or seasoning: he sauces the fish. The same form also carries figurative uses, such as giving zest or interest to something. A colloquial use means being saucy or impudent to someone, and a slang use means to send or hand over. Context, not grammar, tells them apart.

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