taste

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To notice or recognize the flavour of food or drink in your mouth.

   Can you taste the garlic in this sauce?

2. 2
   verb

   To have a particular flavour.

   This soup tastes of lemon and ginger.

3. 3
   noun

   A small amount of food or drink that you try.

   Have a taste of this cake and tell me what you think.

4. 4
   noun

   A short experience of something.

   The trip gave me a taste of life in a big city.

5. 5
   noun

   A person's ability to judge what is attractive, stylish, or of good quality.

   She has excellent taste in clothes.

Common collocations

• taste bud Noun + noun
• delicious taste Adjective + noun

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. Almos…

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External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images