Envoyer la sauce
Meaning: To ejaculate; to fire a burst from a weapon; or to open the throttle. Vulgar in the first sense.
Language: French
Literally: To throw the sauce
Example: “Au feu vert, le pilote a envoyé la sauce.” — When the light turned green, the driver floored it.
Category: Food & Drink
Origin: That slang of the first half of the 20th century used sauce for semen is not surprising given the consistency, and French had sauce d'amour for the secretions of either sex as early as the start of the 17th century — sauce also being what accompanies meat. Balancer la purée says the same. Since ejaculating is also décharger in common speech, and a rifle is an unsubtle enough phallic symbol, the phrase slid by analogy into discharging a weapon around the middle of the century. The engine sense is separate and slightly earlier, from the very start of the 20th: there the sauce is the fuel that lets the revs climb. What unites all three is a sudden release of power, which is why the phrase also serves for landing a hard punch or, of a musician, playing flat out.
More idioms — Food & Drink
- À tire-larigot — In enormous quantities; to excess.
- Ne pas valoir tripette — To be worthless; to be of no interest whatsoever.
- have bigger fish to fry — To have more important things to deal with.
- have one's cake and eat it too — To want two things that cannot both be had.
- eat one's words — To admit that something one said was wrong.
- one's eyes are bigger than one's stomach — To take more food than one can eat; more broadly, to want more than one can handle.
More French idioms
- Tout schuss — Flat out; or straight down, without deviating.
- Chanter comme une casserole — To sing badly out of tune.
- Vaincre le signe indien — To break a run of bad luck.
- Faire un tabac — To be a huge success.
- Passer à tabac — To be given a severe beating, especially in police custody.
- Un coup de tabac — A sudden violent squall at sea; by extension, a brutal turn of events.