English

Noun

sass (uncountable)

1. cheek, back-talk

   quotations

   • "Looky here -- mind how you talk to me; I'm a- standing about all I can stand now -- so don't gimme no sass."
     — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
   • "Say -- if you give me much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a rock off'n your head."
     — The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain

Verb

sass (sassing sassed )

1. talk, talk back

   quotations

   • "The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again."
     — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
   • "But, good land! what did he want to sass back for? You see, it couldn't do him no good, and it was just nuts for them."
     — Tom Sawyer Abroad, Mark Twain

2. (British English, slang) know, be aware of, meet, have sex with. From the popular Douglas Adams novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy .

   The novel provides this example of its use:

   *Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch-hiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."

See also

• Ford Prefect
• frood
• hoopy
• towel

References

• Douglas Noel Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, (Vol.1,Ch.3.p25) ISBN 0517542099
• The Ultra-Complete Index to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Matthias Maul 1992-1994.