Plural of gravy; thick sauces made from meat juices, often served with meat dishes.
From Old French 'gravé,' possibly from a mispronunciation of 'gravé' (engraved) or from 'grain' (grain-based sauce). The word entered English cuisine terminology in the 14th century.
Gravies might come from a medieval misreading—some scholars think 'gravy' started as a mishearing of a French word, showing how cuisine vocabulary gets wonderfully garbled as it travels between languages.
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