DCHP-1 Online

sauce † Hist.

• 1 n. stewed or preserved fruit, pumpkin, etc.

  See also: short sauce   

  • Earlier dialectal variants current in North America account for such forms as sarce [sas] and sass [sæs], which occur frequently in writings of the 19th century. The term doubtless came to Canada in these meanings along with settlers from the New England speech area.

  • 1822  For several weeks I was a good deal puzzled by persons coming, as they said, "to trade for some of my notions,"--"some of my little notions,"--They "guessed they could trade some pumpkin sarce for a few of my little notions."
  • 1853  (1959)  "Oh, dear, yes; she lost all her clothes, and three large jars of preserves she made about a week ago, and sarce in accordance!"
  • 1926  They will dry and shrink to a fraction of their original size, and be stored in crocks for the manufacture of "sass" in those barren spring months when the bounties of autumn have been dissipated by the hunger of winter.

• 2 n. dried apples, hung on strings in colonial days. See 1926 quote at def. 1.

  See also: paring bee  

  • 1852  (1923)  Not know what sarce is? You are clever! Sarce is apples cut up and dried, to make into pies in the winter.
  • 1863  ". . . What's them strings of yallow stuff that are hangin' out of the rafthers, an' are like nothin' I see in all my days 'cept savin's?" / "Sarce," answered Mrs. Logan . . . "So ye calls apples 'sarce!' "