sauciness

English

Etymology tree

English saucy

Proto-Germanic *-in-

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ti

Proto-Germanic *-ōną

Proto-Germanic *-inōną

Proto-Indo-European *-dyé-

Proto-Germanic *-atjaną

Proto-Indo-European *-tus

Proto-Germanic *-þuz

Proto-Germanic *-assuz

Proto-Germanic *-inassuz

Proto-West Germanic *-nassī

Old English -nes

Middle English -nesse

English -ness

English sauciness

From saucy + -ness.

sauciness (countable and uncountable, plural saucinesses)

The property of being saucy.
- 2016 October 13, Matthew Anderson, “The foreign words that seem like English – but aren’t”, in BBC‎^[1], archived from the original on 14 November 2020:
  And when the British respond to a risqué joke with ‘ooh la la’ there’s a sauciness implied that just isn’t there in the original French words, risqué meaning ‘risked’ (a verb, not an adjective) and oh là là a great many things from ‘wow’ to ‘oh dear’, none of them very sexy.
An instance of saucy behavior.

the property of being saucy

an instance of saucy behavior