savory.
Tasty, attractive to the palate.
Meaning & usage
Tasty, attractive to the palate.
The fine restaurant presented an array of savory dishes; each was delicious.
Either salty or spicy, but not sweet.
The mushrooms, meat, bread, rice, peanuts and potatoes were all good savory foods.
Umami.
The savory rabbit soup contrasted well with the sweet cucumber sandwiches with jam.
Morally or ethically acceptable.
Readers are to be warned that quotations in this chapter contain some not so savory language.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sep- Proto-Italic *sapjō Latin sapiō Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *-ōs Proto-Italic *-ōs Latin -or Latin sapōrem Old French savour Old French savouréder. Middle English savourie Middle English savory English savory From the Middle English savory, savourie, from Old French savouré, from Old French savourer, from Late Latin sapōrāre, from Latin sapor (“taste, flavour”), from sapiō, sapere (“taste of, have a flavour of”).
A savory snack.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sep- Proto-Italic *sapjō Latin sapiō Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *-ōs Proto-Italic *-ōs Latin -or Latin sapōrem Old French savour Old French savouréder. Middle English savourie Middle English savory English savory From the Middle English savory, savourie, from Old French savouré, from Old French savourer, from Late Latin sapōrāre, from Latin sapor (“taste, flavour”), from sapiō, sapere (“taste of, have a flavour of”).
Any of several Mediterranean herbs, of the genus Satureja, grown as culinary flavourings.
The leaves of these plants used as a flavouring.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Latin satureiader. Old French savereieinflu.? Old English sæþerieder.? Middle English saverey English savory From Middle English saverey, possibly from Old English sæþerie, from Latin satureia, influenced by or via Old French savereie.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.