taste

See also: Taste, tašte, and tāste

English

Alternative forms

Etymology 1

From Middle English tasten, borrowed from Old French taster, from assumed Vulgar Latin *tastāre, from assumed Vulgar Latin *taxitāre, a new iterative of Latin taxāre (“to touch sharply”), from tangere (“to touch”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g-. Almost displaced native Middle English smaken, smakien (“to taste”) (from Old English smacian (“to taste”)), Middle English smecchen (“to taste, smack”) (from Old English smæċċan (“to taste”)) (whence Modern English smack), Middle English buriȝen (“to taste”) (from Old English byrigan, birian (“to taste”)).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /teɪst/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪst

Noun

taste (countable and uncountable, plural tastes)

  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.
    • 2023 June 15, Rebecca Wallwork, “‘You had to be there’: Foods that taste better on home turf”, in CNN‎[1]:
      Like smell, taste has been found to imprint our minds with strong memories.
  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.
    • 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, II.i:
      That's very true indeed Sir Peter! after having married you I should never pretend to Taste again I allow.
    • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
      "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; […]."
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
      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.
  5. Personal preference; liking; predilection.
    I have developed a taste for fine wine.
  6. (figuratively) A small amount of experience with something that gives a sense of its quality as a whole.
    Such anecdotes give one a taste of life on a trauma ward.
  7. A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
Synonyms
Hyponyms
Meronyms
Derived terms
Terms derived from taste (noun)
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

taste (third-person singular simple present tastes, present participle tasting, simple past and past participle tasted)

  1. (transitive) To sample the flavor of something orally.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 2:9:
      when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine
    • 2023 June 15, Rebecca Wallwork, “‘You had to be there’: Foods that taste better on home turf”, in CNN‎[3]:
      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.
  2. (intransitive, copulative) To have a taste; to excite a particular sensation by which flavor is distinguished.
    The chicken tasted great, but the milk tasted like garlic.
  3. (transitive) To identify (a flavor) by sampling something orally.
    I can definitely taste the marzipan in this cake.
  4. (transitive, figurative) To experience.
    I tasted in her arms the delights of paradise.
    They had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom.
  5. To take sparingly.
    • 1699, John Dryden, Epistle to John Dryden[4]
      Age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
  6. To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
  7. (obsolete) To try by the touch; to handle.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Further reading

Etymology 2

Adjective

taste (not comparable)

  1. (Internet slang) Deliberate misspelling of tasty.

Anagrams

Chinese

Etymology

From English taste.

Pronunciation

Noun

taste

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) taste (preference of a person)

References

Czech

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈtastɛ]

Verb

taste

  1. second-person plural imperative of tasit

Danish

Etymology

From the noun tast.

Pronunciation

  • Rhymes: -astə

Verb

taste (imperative tast, infinitive at taste, present tense taster, past tense tastede, perfect tense har/er tastet)

  1. To type

Conjugation

Conjugation of taste
active passive
present taster tastes
past tastede tastedes
infinitive taste tastes
imperative tast —
participle
present tastende
past tastet
(auxiliary verb have)
gerund —

Derived terms

Dutch

Pronunciation

  • Audio:(file)

Verb

taste

  1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of tasten

German

Pronunciation

  • Audio:(file)

Verb

taste

  1. inflection of tasten:
    1. first-person singular present
    2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
    3. singular imperative

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French tast.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /taːst/, /tast/

Noun

taste (uncountable)

  1. perceived flavor

Descendants

  • English: taste
  • Yola: taaste, tawest, thaaste

References

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

taste (imperative tast, present tense taster, passive tastes, simple past and past participle tasta or tastet, present participle tastende)

  1. to type (on a computer keyboard or typewriter)

References

Serbo-Croatian

Noun

taste (Cyrillic spelling тасте)

  1. vocative singular of tast
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