taste
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: The verb is from Middle English tasten, borrowed from Old French taster (“to taste, touch or hit”), from unattested Vulgar Latin *tastāre (“to touch or feel”), from *taxitāre, an innovated iterative form of Classical Latin taxāre (“to touch sharply”), from tangere (“to touch, to grasp”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g-, which is assumed to have had the same meaning as tangere.
The noun came from the verb, and the two conflated after English lost its infinitive suffix -en, though tasten was most likely already used nominatively (as a gerund), similar to Modern English tasting.
Almost fully displaced native smack, from Middle English smac, smak, smacke, from Old English smæc, smæċċ (“taste, smatch”).
Displaced English smatch, from Middle English smacchen, smecchen, from Old English smæċċan (“to taste; to smack”); displaced also Middle English buriȝen, from Old English bierġan (“to taste”).
Inflected forms:
form: tastes
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: tast
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: tastes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: tasting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: tasted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: tasted
pos: verb
tags: past
form: tast
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: One of the sensations produced by the tongue in response to certain chemicals; the quality of giving this sensation.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: He had a strange taste in his mouth.
Venison has a strong taste.
Like smell, taste has been found to imprint our minds with strong memories.
gloss: The sense that consists in the perception and interpretation of this sensation.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: His taste was impaired by an illness.
gloss: A small sample of food, drink, or recreational drugs.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A person's implicit set of preferences, especially esthetic, though also culinary, sartorial, etc.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Dr. Parker has good taste in wine.
That's very true indeed Sir Peter! after having married you I should never pretend to Taste again I allow.
"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;[…]."
The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.
gloss: Personal preference; liking; predilection.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: I have developed a taste for fine wine.
gloss: A small amount of experience with something that gives a sense of its quality as a whole.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
uncountable
examples: Such anecdotes give one a taste of life on a trauma ward.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Bernard, what do you want? / Bernard Woolley: I want to have a clear conscience. / […] / Sir Humphrey Appleby: When did you acquire this taste for luxuries (laugh track)?
I'm all out of luck / I'm all out of faith / I would give everything just for one taste / But everything's here, all out of place[…]
gloss: A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: To sample the flavor of something orally.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine
Does a bagel in New York City really taste better because of the water, or is it our desire to feel like a “real” New Yorker, even for a few minutes over breakfast, that does the trick? […] The idea that a pint of Guinness tastes best in Ireland sounds like it could be a drinker’s romantic notion – but there is science to back up the claim. […] The stats were overwhelmingly in favor of the Guinness tasting better in Ireland – suggesting that the beer doesn’t travel well or perhaps that non-Irish bartenders don’t excel at pouring it.
gloss: To have a taste; to excite a particular sensation by which flavor is distinguished.
pos: verb
tags: copulative
intransitive
examples: The chicken tasted great, but the milk tasted like garlic.
gloss: To identify (a flavor) by sampling something orally.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: I can definitely taste the marzipan in this cake.
gloss: To experience.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: I tasted in her arms the delights of paradise.
They had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom.
He […] should taste death for every man.
Cowards dye many times before their deaths, / The valiant neuer taſte of death but once: […]
Thou […] wilt taste / No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitarie.
Hopefully, Dux and Julie got to taste some of that good money, because after "No More," there was no more.
gloss: To take sparingly.
pos: verb
examples: 1699, John Dryden, Epistle to John Drydenhttps://books.google.es/books?id=0fo_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA147&dq=%22Age+but+tastes+of+pleasures,+youth+devours%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwihhoWhjrzqAhV9URUIHYdFCJw4ChDoATAAegQIBBAC#v=onepage&q=%22Age%20but%20tastes%20of%20pleasures%2C%20youth%20devours%22&f=false
Age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
gloss: To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
pos: verb
examples: I tasted a little of this honey.
gloss: To try by the touch; to handle.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: to taste the bow
Synonyms: smatch
smake
smack
gust
taste
Derived words: acquired taste
aftertaste
all of one's taste is in one's mouth
all one's taste is in one's mouth
bad taste in one's mouth
champagne taste on a beer billfold
champagne taste on a beer budget
champagne taste on a beer pocketbook
champagne taste on a beer salary
champagne taste on a beer wallet
countertaste
distaste
foretaste
in bad taste
in poor taste
leave a sour taste in one's mouth
nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people
pretaste
smaste
tastebud
tasteful
tasteless
tastemaker
tastemaking
taste map
taste-off
taste of one's own medicine
taste of one's own poison
taste pore
taste-test
tastewise
tasty
there's no accounting for taste
to one's taste
to someone's taste
to taste
undertaste
untaste
mistaste
nontasting
outtaste
retaste
tastable
tasteable
taste blood
untasted
Translations: