There was a big article in the Tribune last week about how marvelous "boss sauces" are, and they included lots of recipes. They were talking about butterscotch or caramel sauces, but I have never heard them called "boss sauces," nor could I find that definition in the dictionaries. Is this widely known, and I have missed it? Or, is it some regionalism?

"Boss" used to be an all-purpose adjective meaning "great" way back in the 60's but I've hardly heard it since.

Typical uses:

"That was a boss concert. I wore this shirt to it, whaddaya think?"

"Oh, it's boss."

etc etc.


My guess would be that the only reason they dredged that term up from the past was that it made a convenient rhyme for "sauce." Rhymes (true rhymes) are, of course, boss!

As with many things in the '60s, the adjectival form of the word boss is a bit older than one would imagine. Eric Partridge has this to say:

boss. adj. Chief, principal: orig. (1840) US; anglicized ca 1875.—2. Pleasant; excellent; champion. Orig. (–1888) US; anglicized 1895, but never very gen.—Short-sighted: Christ's Hospital (–1887). Baumann. Abbr. boss-eyed.

There was a Mexican fast food restaurant here in Portland "Macheesemo Mouse," that had a sauce by that name, but it was clearly not butterscotch. Alas, the place went out of business, and took its wonderful sauce with it. It was founded back in the '60s, so the "boss" meaning was clearly from that era.

That's interesting. So the term boss lost its meaning of 'great' or 'excellent' near the turn of the twentieth century, but sixty years later this meaning was coined anew by the owners of a Mexican restaurant in Portland. Language is fascinating.