green sauce, ˈgreensauce Obs. exc. dial.
1. A sauce of a green colour made from herbs and eaten with meat. (Cf. 2, quot. 1883.)
| c 1460 [see green-fish 1]. 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Morteruela, greene sauce, Moretum. 1599 H. Buttes Dyets drie Dinner P ij b, Greene Sauce. Made of sweete hearbes, as..a clowe or two, and a little Garlicke. a 1612 Harington Salernes Regim. (1634) 68 Sauce for Mutton, Veale, and Kid, is greene sauce, made in Summer with Vinegar or Verjuyce, with a few spices, and without Garlicke. 1661 Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. 117 Pork..; when powdered it's best to be eaten with green sauce. 1747 H. Glasse Cookery ii. 42 You must either put good Gravy, or Green-sauce in the Dish. 1847–89 Halliwell, Green-sauce, sour dock or sorrel mixed with vinegar and sugar. North. |
2. A name for field sorrel, Rumex acetosa and wood sorrel, Oxalis acetosella.
| 1620 Venner Via Recta vii. 149 This proueth that Greenesauce is..wholsome against contagion. 1645 N. Drake Siege Pontefract Cas. (Surtees Soc. 1861) 37 We had allso a boy about 9 yeares of age (as he was getting of greene sawse..) was dangerously shott in the belly. 1790 in W. Marshall Midl. Co. II. 438. 1862 C. P. Johnson Useful Pl. Gt. Brit. 64 The Wood-Sorrel [Oxalis acetosella], ..or Green-sauce. 1883 Almondb. & Huddersf. Gloss., Green sauce, Rumex acetosa,..much used formerly as a sauce with meat, especially veal. |