1. In the original use, a quantity of finely chopped pork, beef, or other meat, spiced and flavoured, enclosed in a short length of the intestine of some animal, so as to form a cylindrical roll (usually, one of the ‘links’ formed by tying the containing intestine at regular intervals); later also, in generalized sense, meat thus prepared. Since the 19th cent. the application of the word has been greatly extended; in its widest use, it denotes a preparation of comminuted beef, veal, pork, mutton, or a mixture of these, either fresh, salted, pickled, smoked or cured, with salt, spices, flour (sometimes with the addition of fats, blood, sugar, vegetables, etc.), stuffed into a container made from an intestine, stomach, bladder, or other animal tissue.There are more than 150 kinds of sausage, distinguished by names indicating the ingredients and the method of manufacture. They are divided into two classes, in the U.S. known as dry sausage, which is a cured product, subjected to a process of drying lasting several weeks, and fresh or wet sausage. Bologna sausage: see Bologna sausage n. at Bologna n. Compounds. polonian sausage; polony sausage: see polony n.¹ German sausage: see German sausage n. at German n. and adj. Compounds 1b.

3. Military. = saucisse n., saucisson n. 3.

sausage-factory n.

sausage-shop n.

sausage-finger n.

sausage-fingered adj.

sausage-pink adj.

sausage-shaped adj.

sausage balloon n. (a) an elongated aeronautical balloon; †(b) slang a kite balloon used for observation (obsolete).

sausage board n. a surf-board rounded at both ends.

sausage-burger n. [burger n.] a hamburger made with sausage meat.

sausage curl n. a curl resembling a sausage; also, esp. a horizontal curl (see quots.).

sausage dog n. colloquial a dachshund.

† sausage-eater n. slang Obsolete a German.

† sausage-hose n. Obsolete ? hose padded so as to resemble sausages.

sausage machine n. a machine for manufacturing sausages; also figurative, esp. with reference to an institution that is held to ‘process’ its members so that their views, outlook, etc., are routinely identical; also attributive.

sausage-meat n. meat minced and spiced to be used in sausages or as a stuffing; also transferred and attributive.

sausage poison n. a peculiar ptomaine sometimes developed in sausages.

sausage-poisoning n.

sausage roll n. a sausage, or a roll of sausage-meat, enveloped in a cover of flour paste, and cooked.

sausage toad n. colloquial (see quot. 1937).

sausage-tree n. an evergreen tree, Kigelia pinnata, belonging to the family Bignoniaceæ, native to tropical Africa, and bearing red, bell-shaped flowers followed by pendulous, hard-shelled fruits shaped like large sausages.

Nautical. A length of moulded plastic or other yielding material suspended horizontally in a quayside or boat, and serving as a fender against collision or buffeting. Cf. fender n. 2b.

transitive. To subject (a person or thing) to treatment reminiscent of the manufacture or shape of a sausage.