sausage

Etymology

From late Middle English sawsiche, from Anglo-Norman sausiche (compare Norman saûciche), from Late Latin salsīcia (compare Sicilian sausizza, Spanish salchicha, Italian salsiccia), feminine of salsīcius (“seasoned with salt”), derivative of Latin salsus (“salted”), from sal (“salt”). More at salt. Doublet of saucisse. See also Sicilian sausizza. Displaced native Old English mearh.

noun

1. A food made of ground meat (or meat substitute) and seasoning, packed in a section of the animal's intestine, or in a similarly cylindrical shaped synthetic casing; a length of this food.
2. A sausage-shaped thing.
3. (vulgar slang) Penis.
4. (informal) A term of endearment.
   my little sausage
   “Algernon, you silly sausage. Now you want to marry me? Don't you remember we were already engaged to be married, and then I broke it off with you?” 2019, Paullina Simons, Inexpressible Island (End of Forever)
5. (military, archaic) A saucisse.
6. A dachshund; sausage dog.
7. (rhyming slang) Short for sausage roll (“the dole; unemployment”).
   I got fired and I'm back on the sausage again.

verb

1. To squeeze tightly into something.
   He leapt to his feet, carefully sausaged his screwdrivers in a roll beneath his arm and turned to reach into the box. 2009, Paul Kenyon, I Am Justice: A Journey Out of Africa, Preface Publishing, The Random House Group, page 92
   Now it was my turn to whip my wrap off the ground. I quickly sausaged myself within it while simultaneously dusting sand off my arms and legs. 2011, Michelle Dalton, Sixteenth Summer, Simon Pulse, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, page 90
   No longer able to wear white socks and slippers, she wore Tet Hose that sausaged her swollen feet and legs. 2012, Mary Elizabeth Moloney, Elizabeth: Learning to Dress Myself from the Inside Out, Heart Whisperings, page 253
   Knit blankets sausaged their legs. 2012, Katrina Onstad, Everybody Has Everything, Emblem, McClelland & Stewart, page 116
   In the top drawer were neatly piled thermals and socks sausaged into pairs. 2012, Emily Perkins, The Forrests, Bloomsbury Circus, page 87
   Socks she sausaged like everyone else, but T-shirts she folded and stacked like a factory worker. 2015, Tyrone Geronimo Johnson, Welcome to Braggsville, William Morrow, pages 150–151
   Filled to bursting with IV fluids, the skin on my hips is taut; it feels like I’ve sausaged myself into pantyhose five sizes too small. 2014 March/April, Caitlin Crawshaw, “The Other F-word”, in Briarpatch, volume 43, number 2, page 5
   Oh well, yes, I sausaged myself into the dark-blue wool—quite proper—and walked forever to the 21 Club where Dad was being tossed out—raging, whining—I hadn’t, I’ve told you already—seen him in years. 2015, Helen Wickes, World as You Left It: Poems, Sixteen Rivers Press, page 59
   Dressing in a flash, she sausaged on her skinny jeans and sleeveless camo top with peek-a-boo sides for boob aficionados. 2016, Christopher Carr, Mayday, 2nd edition, SynergEbooks, page 51
   In her arms, an infant sausaged inside a rolled cedar mat. 2017, Karen Polinsky, Dungeness, Fairfield, Calif.: Bink Books, Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company, page 20
   My soldier has pulled the maid’s apron from the mannequin in the larder, and sausaged his hairy thighs inside splitting the lace and seams, […] 2017, Kevin Shaw, Smaller Hours, Icehouse Poetry, Goose Lane Editions, page 20
   There’s nothing worse than having cashed out the college fund so that Mom and Dad and Buddy and Sis can afford airfare to Wally World, only to find out that they are additionally facing bag fees and snack fees, and soon enough, there will likely be a fee to have the 350-pound man sausaged next to Sis in the middle seat keep his meaty elbows out of her ribcage. 25 December 2017, “The Scrapbook: A Surcharge on the Charge, Sir”, in The Weekly Standard, volume 23, number 16, page 2, column 1
2. To make into sausage.
   There is no escaping the Limerick pig. In single file, in battalions, as solitary scout, alive or dead, baconed and sausaged, he dominates the town. 1904, M[ilburg] F[rancisco] Mansfield, B[lanche] McM[anus], Romantic Ireland, volume II, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, page 99
   I mayn’t know much about pigs, but I know a lot about Muckley, and there must be something pretty wrong with any pigs that he wouldn’t risk sausaging. 1938, Dion Fortune, The Sea Priestess, York Beach, Me.: Samuel Weiser, Inc., published 1989, page 245
   At butchering time, they kept three pigs for their own use, smoking, brining, and sausaging the meat, and trying the lard. 1965, Landmark, Waukesha County Historical Society, page 16
   Long afterward Renate remembered “the pigs squeaking and jerking while coming down a funnel in which they were shorn…on their way to getting quartered and sausaged” and the elevator that “released one steer at a time” to be “greeted with a blow of a sledge hammer on his head.” 1987, Susan Quinn, A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney, Summit Books, Simon & Schuster, Inc., pages 246–247
   The fresh meat was sausaged into the tripes of pig and deer and ox, because the time for salting was not yet come. a. 1994, John James, edited by Caitlín Matthews and John Matthews, The Fourth Gwenevere, Jo Fletcher Books, Quercus Editions Ltd., published 2014, page 47
   So I took the lot and had much of it custom-smoked, then I roasted, fried, grilled, sautéed, stir-fried, stewed, braised, and sausaged the rest. 1992 September, Leslie Land, “High on the Hog”, in House & Garden, volume 164, number 9, page 62, column 2
3. To make sausage-like, especially to give the appearance of barely fitting into the casing or skin.
   The second Mrs. Teague wore a baby blue tank top and too-tight white shorts that sausaged her hips. 2001, Jonathan Kellerman, Flesh and Blood, New York, N.Y.: Random House, page 226
   Blood and gravity had sausaged her legs and feet, fattening them into white-stocking loaves that dangled eighteen inches above her neatly folded nurse’s uniform on the floor. 2007, Joe Schreiber, Eat the Dark, New York, N.Y.: Del Rey/Ballantine Books, page 108
4. (engineering) To form a sausage-like shape, with a non-uniform cross section.