taste
/teɪst/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.73 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One of the sensations produced by the tongue in response to certain chemicals; the quality of giving this sensation.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
The sense that consists in the perception and interpretation of this sensation.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A person's implicit set of preferences, especially esthetic, though also culinary, sartorial, etc.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A small amount of experience with something that gives a sense of its quality as a whole.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "He had a strange taste in his mouth."
- "Venison has a strong taste."
- "Like smell, taste has been found to imprint our minds with strong memories."
- "His taste was impaired by an illness."
- "Dr. Parker has good taste in wine."
- "That's very true indeed Sir Peter! after having married you I should never pretend to Taste again I allow."
Etymology
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”).