Sausage is a kind of food usually made of minced meat (usually pork or beef), mixed with salt, herbs and other spices, and surrounded by a tough skin, although there are also vegetarian sausages. The word sausage comes from the old French saussiche and the Latin salsus, which means salty.
Usually, sausages are formed in casings, which are traditionally made of intestines, but sometimes they are synthetic. Some sausages are cooked during processing, and then the casing may be removed.
Sausage making is a traditional food preservation technology. Sausages can be preserved by pickling, drying or smoking.
There are more than one kind of sausage in the plural sausages.