Etymology
Variant of sauce.
Noun
sass (uncountable)
- The quality of being sassy.
This girl has a lot of sass.
- (US) Backtalk, cheek, sarcasm.
1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter I, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 23:Say—if you give me much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a rock off'n your head.
- (archaic) Vegetables used in making sauces.
- A subgenre of screamo music.
Translations
backtalk, cheek, sarcasm
- Bulgarian: дързък отговор m (dǎrzǎk otgovor)
- Czech: drzost (cs) f
- Dutch: gedoe (nl) n, tegenspreken (nl), zever (nl)
- French: culot (fr) m, toupet (fr) m
- German: Frechheit (de) f, Unverschämtheit (de) f
- Hungarian: pimaszság (hu)
- Portuguese: atrevimento (pt)
- Russian: де́рзость (ru) f (dérzostʹ)
- Spanish: descaro (es), descoco (es)
- Swedish: malis (sv), gliring (sv) c, spydighet (sv), stickord (sv) n, giftighet (sv) c, förtal (sv) n
|
Verb
sass (third-person singular simple present sasses, present participle sassing, simple past and past participle sassed)
- (intransitive, US, informal) To talk, to talk back.
1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXI, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 316:The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass back; and the minute they was fairly at it, I lit out, and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like a deer—for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again.
1894, Mark Twain, chapter 2, in Tom Sawyer Abroad:“But, good land! what did he want to sass back for? You see, it couldn’t do him no good, and it was just nuts for them.”
- (transitive, US, informal) To speak insolently to.
Don’t sass your teachers!
1923, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “Chapter 8”, in Emily of New Moon:“This isn’t any of your business, Ilse Burnley,” muttered Jennie, sullenly.
“Oh, isn’t it? Don’t you sass me, Piggy-eyes.” Ilse walked up to the retreating Jennie and shook a sunburned fist in her face.