taste
Pronunciation Noun

taste

  1. One of the sensations produced by the tongue in response to certain chemicals; the quality of giving this sensation.
    He had a strange taste in his mouth.
    Venison has a strong taste.
  2. The sense that consists in the perception and interpretation of this sensation.
    His taste was impaired by an illness.
  3. A small sample of food, drink, or recreational drugs.
  4. (countable and uncountable) A person's implicit set of preferences, especially esthetic, though also culinary, sartorial, etc.
    Dr. Parker has good taste in wine.
    • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326 ↗:
      "My tastes," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects; […]."
  5. Personal preference; liking; predilection.
    I have developed a taste for fine wine.
  6. (uncountable, figuratively) A small amount of experience with something that gives a sense of its quality as a whole.
  7. A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Verb

taste (tastes, present participle tasting; past and past participle tasted)

  1. (transitive) To sample the flavor of something orally.
    • Bible, John 2:9
      when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine
  2. (intransitive) To have a taste; to excite a particular sensation by which flavour is distinguished.
    The chicken tasted great, but the milk tasted like garlic.
  3. To experience.
    I tasted in her arms the delights of paradise.
    They had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom.
    • Bible, Hebrews 2:9
      He […] should taste death for every man.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book 7”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:
      Thou […] wilt taste / No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitarie.
  4. To take sparingly.
    • Age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
  5. To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
    • Bible, 1 Samuel 14:29
      I tasted a little of this honey.
  6. (obsolete) To try by the touch; to handle.
    • to taste a bow
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations


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