mid-14c., "condiment for meat, fish, etc.; pickling liquid, brine," from Old French sauce, sausse, from Latin salsa "things salted, salt food," noun use of fem. singular or neuter plural of adjective salsus "salted," from past participle of Old Latin sallere "to salt," from sal (genitive salis) "salt" (from PIE root *sal- "salt").

From late 14c. as "a curative preparation, medicinal salt." Often in 15c.-17. sawce, salse; constant reimportation of the word in French cookery terms might have helped keep the older spelling. Also formerly applied broadly in provincial English and U.S. to condiments of any kind, especially garden vegetables or roots eaten with meat (1620s), also known as garden-sauce.

Figurative meaning "something which adds piquancy to words or actions" is recorded from c. 1500; the sense of "impertinence" is by 1835, but the connection of ideas in it is much older (see saucy, and compare sass). Slang meaning "liquor" is attested by 1940. Figurative phrases suggesting "subject to the same kind of usage" is by 1520s (serued with the same sauce).

mid-15c., "to season (food), add a sauce or relish to," from sauce (n.). By 1510s in the figurative sense of "intermix or accompany with what gives piquancy or relish." From 1862 as "to speak to impertinently, treat with impertinence." Related: Sauced; saucing.

"one addicted to making saucy remarks," 1580s, sawcebox; see saucy + box (n.1). There never seems to have been a literal sense in reference to the "condiment" meaning of sauce; a sauce-boat (1733) was a small, lipped vessel for sauces, and compare saucer. A saucery (mid-15c.) was "a place where sauces are made."

also sauce-pan, 1680s, "small metallic cooking vessel with a long handle," from sauce (n.) + pan (n.). Originally a pan for cooking sauces, now in more general use.

mid-14c., "small, shallow dish," from Anglo-Latin saucerium and Old French saussier (Modern French saucière) "sauce dish," from Late Latin salsarium, neuter of salsarius "of or for salted things," from Latin salsus (see sauce (n.)).

Originally a small dish or pan in which sauce is set on a table. Meaning "small, round, shallow vessel for supporting a cup and retaining any liquid which might spill" is attested from c. 1700.

Figurative of large, round eyes (as of a ghost or a person frightened by one) from 14c. (13c. in Anglo-French) and thus originally a reference to the condiment dish. Short for flying saucer by 1947; hence saucerman, saucerian, etc.

"impudently, with impertinent boldness," 1540s; see saucy + -ly (2).

"the character of being saucy; saucy language or conduct," 1540s, from saucy + -ness. Once (1550s) as sauceliness.

c. 1500, "resembling sauce" (a sense now obsolete), later, of persons, words, etc., "impertinent in speech or conduct, flippantly bold, cheeky" (1520s), from sauce (n.) + -y (2). The connecting notion is sauce in the figurative sense of "that which adds intensity, piquancy in words or actions."

Compare Skelton's have eaten sauce for "be abusive." Also compare sauce malapert "impertinence" (1520s), and sauce (n.) in its obsolete use as a vocative for "impudent person" (1530s).  In Shakespeare, with overtones of "wanton, lascivious," it was "a term of serious condemnation" [OED]. Also compare salty in similar senses.

1933 (Sa'udis), from Sa'ud, family name of the rulers of Nejd from 18c. and of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia since 1932. The name is from Arabic sa'd "good fortune, happiness." With common Semitic national designation suffix -i. Related: Saudi Arabia; Saudi Arabian.

"a favorite German dish consisting of cabbage cut fine, pressed, salted, and fermented until sour," 1630s, from German Sauerkraut, literally "sour cabbage," from sauer "sour" (from Proto-Germanic *sura-; see sour (adj.)) + Kraut "vegetable, cabbage," from Old High German krut, from Proto-Germanic *kruthan.

They pickle it [cabbage] up in all high Germany, with salt and barberies, and so keepe it all the yeere, being commonly the first dish you have served in at table, which they call their sawerkrant. [James Hart, "Klinike, or the diet of the diseased," 1633]

In U.S. slang, figurative use for "a German" dates from 1858 (compare kraut). "The effort to substitute liberty-cabbage for sauerkraut, made by professional patriots in 1918, was a complete failure." [Mencken]. French choucroute (19c.) is the German word, but via Alsatian German surkrut but with folk etymology alteration in French based on chou "cabbage" + croûte "crust" (n.).