How did the term saucy come to mean flirtatious? Here is what onelook.com gives me:


adjective: characterized by a lightly pert and exuberant quality
adjective: improperly forward or bold

According to etymology.com it comes from "sauce," with the connecting notion being "piquancy in words or actions."

ooh - I like that - piquant . . . hmm

The term dates back a long way, certainly to 1530 when it meant that you were 'insolent towards superiors' (I like that). It had become associated with a wanton and lascivious nature by 1603, especially in relation to 'arousing sexual desire' (nice!). From what I can gather however, it does indeed seem to stem from the nature of the sauce that it was originally meant to describe.

Welcome, Doad! Good to see you on board and posting!

Yes, Doad - it's great to have you here!

I love the "insolent towards superiors" bit - I guess I never thought of folks in 1530 being like that! I guess "everything old is new again," eh?

So great to see you here, Doad!
And another Brit besides!

That is interesting that the original meaning was insolence towards superiors. I wonder how it evolved to being associated with wanton and lascivious behavior.

quote:

I wonder how it evolved to being associated with wanton and lascivious behavior.

Same way salsa became associated with wanton and lascivious dancing? There's just something cross-culturally sexy about liquid dressings or toppings for food.

Hmm - I think you might be onto something there, neveu. Might be interesting to do a little study of the importance of liquids in sensual imagery. What other "topping" or "dressing" words have this sort of double meaning?

Where are our multi-linguists??

Well, there's always whipped cream ...

Tinman

..... crushed nuts ??

Whipped cream sounds like fun but crushed nuts!!!!!!!

My thoughts, exactly, Doad . . .

and if you ask me, that whipped cream could use a smidge of nice warm chocolate . . .

And so we're back to sauce again!

Yet, "on the sauce" implies drunkenness.

Welcome, Doad, from the unofficial board curmudgeon.

Well . . . people who are "on the sauce" tend to be more likely to get saucy, don't you think?

Did we discuss somewhere, long ago, the question of whether sauce rhymes with paws in Brit-speak?

Over here we end the one with an s-sound, and the other with a z-sound: saus (sort of like 'moss'); pawz (like 'gauze'). If you Brits use the same ending-sound in each, is it the s or the z that you use?

And if (as I assume) you use the z sound, and pronounce 'sauce' as sauz, then do follow the same pattern and pronounce 'saucy' as sauzee? Or do you convert the latter back to sausee?

Sauce has a soft 's' and rhymes with gorse or morse (of course!... Sorry ). Moss has a short, rather than a long 'o' over here, so the two wouldn't rhyme.

Paws and gauze are the same here too.

Incidentally, doesn't gorse smell lovely when you're walking along the clifftops in the summer?