"outspoken, impudent, cheeky," 1833, American English, alteration of saucy. Related: Sassily; sassiness.
Entries linking to sassy
saucy adj.
c. 1500, "resembling sauce" (a sense now obsolete), later, of persons, words, etc., "impertinent in speech or conduct, flippantly bold, cheeky" (1520s), from sauce (n.) + -y (2). The connecting notion is sauce in the figurative sense of "that which adds intensity, piquancy in words or actions."
Compare Skelton's have eaten sauce for "be abusive." Also compare sauce malapert "impertinence" (1520s), and sauce (n.) in its obsolete use as a vocative for "impudent person" (1530s). In Shakespeare, with overtones of "wanton, lascivious," it was "a term of serious condemnation" [OED]. Also compare salty in similar senses.
sass n.
"impudence, insolence," by 1835, a back-formation from sassy, and ultimately a colloquial pronunciation of sauce. Sass (n.) as a colloquial variant of sauce (n.) is attested by 1775. The verb sass, "to talk or reply saucily, speak impertinently to" is by 1856. Related: Sassed; sassing.