taste.
One of the sensations produced by the tongue in response to certain chemicals; the quality of giving this sensation.
Meaning & usage
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.
The sense that consists in the perception and interpretation of this sensation.
His taste was impaired by an illness.
A small sample of food, drink, or recreational drugs.
A person's implicit set of preferences, especially esthetic, though also culinary, sartorial, etc.
Dr. Parker has good taste in wine.
Personal preference; liking; predilection.
I have developed a taste for fine wine.
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.
A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
The least amount or portion of something; a jot.
Where this word comes from
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”).
To sample the flavor of something orally.
To have a taste; to excite a particular sensation by which flavor is distinguished.
The chicken tasted great, but the milk tasted like garlic.
To identify (a flavor) by sampling something orally.
I can definitely taste the marzipan in this cake.
To experience.
I tasted in her arms the delights of paradise.
They had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom.
To take sparingly.
To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
To try by the touch; to handle.
Where this word comes from
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”).
Deliberate misspelling of tasty.
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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.