How to pronounce sauce in American English

IPA /sɑs/ Syllables 1 · sahs Stress 1st syllable

SAHS

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Americans pronounce sauce as SAHS (/sɑs/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The awful sauce caused a pause in the applause" or "She asked the clerk where to find the pasta sauce" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "sauce".

1 syllable, 3 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

ah/ɑ/

Relax your lips and drop your jaw significantly. The tongue tip lightly touches behind the bottom front teeth and the back part of the tongue presses down a little to create more dark space in the back of the mouth.

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

In real conversation

Hear "sauce" in the wild.

Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.

"He cooked the pan with butter and herbs to make a delicious sauce."

hee KUUKT dhuh PAN wihth BUH·ter uhnd URBZ tuh MAYK uh duh·LIH·shuhs SAHS

"She asked the clerk where to find the pasta sauce."

shee ASKT dhuh KLURK wair tuh FAHYND dhuh PAH·stuh SAHS

"The awful sauce caused a pause in the applause."

dhee AH·fuhl SAHS KAHZD uh PAHZ ihn dhee uh·PLAHZ

"The sauce needs to simmer on low heat for thirty minutes."

dhuh SAHS NEEDZ tuh SIH·mer ahn LOH HEET fer THUR·dee MIH·nuhts

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "sauce" different from British English?

American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "SAHS" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.