saucing

Pluralsaucings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sauce.

   The chef spent the evening saucing each plate by hand before it left the kitchen.

   Saucing the ribs too early in the cook makes the meat go soggy.

   Note

   One -ing form does two jobs. After a form of be it is the progressive participle (she was saucing the plates). As a gerund it names the activity but still takes an object (saucing the ribs). It carries every sense of the verb, from seasoning food to the colloquial sense of being impudent to someone. Do not confuse the gerund with the archaic word for sauce, which names the dressing itself, not the act.

2. 2
   nounarchaiccountable or uncountable

   A liquid or semi-liquid dressing served with or poured over food to add flavor.

   Like the dressing spooned over a dish to give it taste.

   She spooned a rich saucing over the roasted venison.

   There was a time when France, in the excess of its saucings and in the glory of its seasonings, used to twit poor England with having a score of religions and only one fish-sauce!

   1868, The Athenaeum

   Note

   An older noun for the dressing itself, now replaced by plain sauce. The Athenaeum in 1868 could still praise France for "the excess of its saucings" next to "the glory of its seasonings." The plural is where it sounds most natural, suggesting a whole repertoire of sauces rather than a single one. In modern prose it reads as deliberately old-fashioned, so outside period pastiche, sauce is the safe choice.

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