Taste \Taste\ (t[=a]st), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Tasted; p. pr. &
vb. n. Tasting.] [OE. tasten to feel, to taste, OF. taster,
F. tater to feel, to try by the touch, to try, to taste,
(assumed) LL. taxitare, fr. L. taxare to touch sharply, to
estimate. See Tax, v. t.]
1. To try by the touch; to handle; as, to taste a bow. [Obs.]
--Chapman.
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Taste it well and stone thou shalt it find.
--Chaucer.
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2. To try by the touch of the tongue; to perceive the relish
or flavor of (anything) by taking a small quantity into a
mouth. Also used figuratively.
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When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water
that was made wine. --John ii. 9.
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When Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became
incapable of pity or remorse. --Gibbon.
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3. To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
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I tasted a little of this honey. --1 Sam. xiv.
29.
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4. To become acquainted with by actual trial; to essay; to
experience; to undergo.
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He . . . should taste death for every man. --Heb.
ii. 9.
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5. To partake of; to participate in; -- usually with an
implied sense of relish or pleasure.
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Thou . . . wilt taste
No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitary. --Milton.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Taste \Taste\, v. i.
1. To try food with the mouth; to eat or drink a little only;
to try the flavor of anything; as, to taste of each kind
of wine.
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2. To have a smack; to excite a particular sensation, by
which the specific quality or flavor is distinguished; to
have a particular quality or character; as, this water
tastes brackish; the milk tastes of garlic.
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Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason
Shall to the king taste of this action. --Shak.
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3. To take sparingly.
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For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
--Dryden.
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4. To have perception, experience, or enjoyment; to partake;
as, to taste of nature's bounty. --Waller.
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The valiant never taste of death but once. --Shak.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Taste \Taste\, n.
1. The act of tasting; gustation.
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2. A particular sensation excited by the application of a
substance to the tongue; the quality or savor of any
substance as perceived by means of the tongue; flavor; as,
the taste of an orange or an apple; a bitter taste; an
acid taste; a sweet taste.
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3. (Physiol.) The one of the five senses by which certain
properties of bodies (called their taste, savor, flavor)
are ascertained by contact with the organs of taste.
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Note: Taste depends mainly on the contact of soluble matter
with the terminal organs (connected with branches of
the glossopharyngeal and other nerves) in the papillae
on the surface of the tongue. The base of the tongue is
considered most sensitive to bitter substances, the
point to sweet and acid substances.
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4. Intellectual relish; liking; fondness; -- formerly with
of, now with for; as, he had no taste for study.
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I have no taste
Of popular applause. --Dryden.
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5. The power of perceiving and relishing excellence in human
performances; the faculty of discerning beauty, order,
congruity, proportion, symmetry, or whatever constitutes
excellence, particularly in the fine arts and
belles-letters; critical judgment; discernment.
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6. Manner, with respect to what is pleasing, refined, or in
accordance with good usage; style; as, music composed in
good taste; an epitaph in bad taste.
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7. Essay; trial; experience; experiment. --Shak.
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8. A small portion given as a specimen; a little piece tasted
or eaten; a bit. --Bacon.
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9. A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
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Syn: Savor; relish; flavor; sensibility; gout.
Usage: Taste, Sensibility, Judgment. Some consider
taste as a mere sensibility, and others as a simple
exercise of judgment; but a union of both is requisite
to the existence of anything which deserves the name.
An original sense of the beautiful is just as
necessary to aesthetic judgments, as a sense of right
and wrong to the formation of any just conclusions on
moral subjects. But this "sense of the beautiful" is
not an arbitrary principle. It is under the guidance
of reason; it grows in delicacy and correctness with
the progress of the individual and of society at
large; it has its laws, which are seated in the nature
of man; and it is in the development of these laws
that we find the true "standard of taste."
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What, then, is taste, but those internal powers,
Active and strong, and feelingly alive
To each fine impulse? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deformed, or disarranged, or gross
In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture, can bestow,
But God alone, when first his active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul.
--Akenside.
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Taste buds, or Taste goblets (Anat.), the flask-shaped
end organs of taste in the epithelium of the tongue. They
are made up of modified epithelial cells arranged somewhat
like leaves in a bud.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
taste
n 1: the sensation that results when taste buds in the tongue and
throat convey information about the chemical composition
of a soluble stimulus; "the candy left him with a bad
taste"; "the melon had a delicious taste" [syn: taste
sensation, gustatory sensation, taste perception, gustatory
perception]
2: a strong liking; "my own preference is for good literature";
"the Irish have a penchant for blarney" [syn: preference,
penchant, predilection]
3: delicate discrimination (especially of aesthetic values);
"arrogance and lack of taste contributed to his rapid
success"; "to ask at that particular time was the ultimate
in bad taste" [syn: appreciation, discernment, perceptiveness]
4: a brief experience of something; "he got a taste of life on
the wild side"; "she enjoyed her brief taste of
independence"
5: a small amount eaten or drunk; "take a taste--you'll like
it" [syn: mouthful]
6: the faculty of taste; "his cold deprived him of his sense of
taste" [syn: gustation, sense of taste, gustatory
modality]
7: a kind of sensing; distinguishing substances by means of the
taste buds; "a wine tasting" [syn: tasting]
v 1: have flavor; taste of something [syn: savor, savour]
2: take a sample of; "Try these new crackers"; "Sample the
regional dishes" [syn: sample, try, try out]
3: perceive by the sense of taste; "Can you taste the garlic?"
4: have a distinctive or characteristic taste; "This tastes of
nutmeg" [syn: smack]
5: distinguish flavors; "We tasted wines last night"
6: experience briefly; "The ex-slave tasted freedom shortly
before she died"
WordNet (r) 2.0
359 Moby Thesaurus words for "taste":
Atticism, affection, affinity, appetence, appetite, appreciate,
appreciation, appreciation of differences, appreciativeness,
apprehend, appropriateness, aroma, artistic judgment, assay,
attribute, badge, bag, be aware of, be conscious of, be exposed to,
be fond of, be partial to, be sensible of, be subjected to, bent,
bias, bit, bite, brand, break bread, bring to test, cachet,
canine appetite, cast, censoriousness, character, characteristic,
chasteness, chastity, choosiness, chosen kind, chromesthesia,
clarity, classicalism, classicism, clearness, color hearing,
come up against, comeliness, comprehension, configuration, confirm,
connoisseurship, conscientiousness, correctness, count calories,
critical niceness, criticalness, crush, cultivation, cup of tea,
cut, cut and try, dash, decorum, delicacy, delight in, design,
desire, diet, differentia, differential, dignity, directness,
discernment, discretion, discriminating taste, discriminatingness,
discrimination, discriminativeness, disposition, distinction,
distinctive feature, drop, drought, druthers, dryness, earmark,
ease, eat, elegance, elegancy, emptiness, empty stomach, encounter,
endure, enjoy, essay, examine, example, experience, experiment,
fall to, fancy, fare, fashion, fastidiousness, favor, feature,
feed, feel, feeling, felicitousness, felicity, figure, fine palate,
finesse, finish, fittingness, five senses, flavor, flow,
flowing periods, fluency, fondness, form, give a try,
give a tryout, gleam, go through, good taste, grace, gracefulness,
gracility, grain, gust, gusto, hallmark, have, have a go,
have knowledge of, hear, hearing, heart, hint, hollow hunger,
hunger, hungriness, idea, idiocrasy, idiosyncrasy, impress,
impression, inclination, index, individualism, infatuation,
intimation, judgement, judiciousness, keynote, know, labor under,
leaning, lick, like, likes, liking, limpidity, lineaments,
little bite, little smack, look, love, lucidity,
making distinctions, manner, mannerism, mark, marking, meet,
meet up with, meet with, meticulousness, mode, mold, morsel, motif,
mouthful, naturalness, nature, neatness, niceness of distinction,
nicety, nip, odor, palate, partake, partake of, partiality,
particular choice, particularity, particularness, pass through,
passion, pay, peculiarity, pellucidity, penchant, perceive,
perception, perfectionism, personal choice, perspicuity, phonism,
photism, piece, pinch, pitch in, plainness, play around with,
polish, politeness, politesse, polydipsia, practice upon,
preciseness, precisianism, precision, predilection, predisposition,
preference, prejudice, prepossession, priggishness, proclivity,
property, propriety, prove, prudishness, punctilio,
punctiliousness, purism, puritanism, purity, put to trial, quality,
quirk, receptor, refined discrimination, refined palate,
refinement, relish, research, respond, respond to stimuli,
restraint, road-test, run a sample, run up against, sample,
sampling, sapidity, sapor, savor, scintilla, scrupulosity,
scrupulousness, seal, see, seemliness, selectiveness, selectivity,
sense, sense organ, senses, sensibility, sensillum, sensitivity,
sensorium, sensory organ, shade, shadow, shake down, shape, sight,
simplicity, singularity, sip, sixth sense, smack, smack the lips,
smattering, smell, smoothness, soft, soupcon, spark, specialty,
specimen, spend, sprinkling, stamp, stand under, stomach,
straightforwardness, strictness, style, stylishness, substantiate,
subtlety, suffer, suggestion, sup, suspicion, sustain, swallow,
swatch, sweet tooth, synesthesia, tact, tactfulness, taint, take,
tang, tapeworm, taste of, tastefulness, taster, tendency,
terseness, test, thing, thirst, thirstiness, thought, tincture,
tinge, token, tolerance, torment of Tantalus, touch, trace, trait,
trick, trifle, try, try it on, try out, type, unaffectedness,
undergo, understanding, validate, verify, weakness, whiff, wink,
zest
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
taste [primarily MIT] n. 1. The quality in a program that tends to be
inversely proportional to the number of features, hacks, and kluges
programmed into it. Also `tasty', `tasteful', `tastefulness'. "This
feature comes in N tasty flavors." Although `tasty' and `flavorful' are
essentially synonyms, `taste' and flavor are not. Taste refers to
sound judgment on the part of the creator; a program or feature can
_exhibit_ taste but cannot _have_ taste. On the other hand, a feature
can have flavor. Also, flavor has the additional meaning of `kind'
or `variety' not shared by `taste'. The marked sense of flavor is more
popular than `taste', though both are widely used. See also elegant.
2. Alt. sp. of tayste.
Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)
taste
1. (primarily MIT) The quality of a program that tends to be
inversely proportional to the number of features, hacks, and
kluges it contains. Taste refers to sound judgment on the
part of the creator. See also elegant, flavour.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)
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