taste

taste¹ W2S2 [teıst] n

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1¦(food)¦

2¦(what you like)¦

3¦(judgment)¦

4¦(what is acceptable/not offensive)¦

5¦(experience)¦

6¦(feeling)¦

7 ... to taste

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1.) ¦(FOOD)¦

a) [U and C]

the feeling that is produced by a particular food or drink when you put it in your mouth

= ↑flavour

have a sweet/bitter/salty etc taste

▪ The medicine had a slightly bitter taste.

taste of

▪ I don't really like the taste of meat any more.

b) [U]

the sense by which you know one food from another

▪ Some birds have a highly developed sense of taste .

c) have a taste (of sth)

if you have a taste of some food or drink, you put a small amount in your mouth to try it

▪ You must have a taste of the fruitcake.

2.) ¦(WHAT YOU LIKE)¦ [U and C]

the kind of things that someone likes

taste in

▪ We have similar tastes in music .

taste for

▪ While she was in France she developed a taste for fine wines.

▪ He had acquired a taste for adventure .

▪ There are books to suit everyone's tastes .

▪ courses that cater for all tastes

▪ My wife has very expensive tastes .

▪ Choosing a wedding dress is all a matter of personal taste .

▪ His musical tastes changed radically as soon as he started college.

▪ The colours were much too bright for my taste .

▪ This type of event isn't to everyone's taste .

▪ 'Why did she marry someone like that?' ' There's no accounting for taste .'

▪ Olives are something of an acquired taste .

3.) ¦(JUDGMENT)¦[U]

someone's judgment when they choose clothes, decorations etc

have good/bad etc taste

▪ She has such good taste.

taste in

▪ Some people have really bad taste in clothes.

4.) ¦(WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE/NOT OFFENSIVE)¦[U]

the quality of being acceptable and not offensive

▪ All television companies accept the need to maintain standards of taste and decency .

be in bad/poor etc taste

(=likely to offend people)

▪ She acknowledged her remark had been in bad taste.

5.) ¦(EXPERIENCE)¦ [usually singular]

a short experience of something that shows you what it is like

taste of

▪ Schoolchildren from city schools can get a taste of the countryside first-hand.

▪ It gave him his first taste of acting for the big screen.

▪ The autumn storms gave us a taste of what was to come (=showed what would happen later) .

6.) ¦(FEELING)¦ [singular]

the feeling that you have after an experience, especially a bad experience

▪ The way he spoke to those children left a nasty taste in my mouth .

▪ the bitter taste of failure

▪ the sweet taste of victory

7.) ... to taste

if you add salt, spices etc to taste, you add as much as you think makes it taste right - used in instructions in cook books

▪ Add salt to taste.

→give sb a taste of their own medicine at ↑medicine

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COLLOCATES for sense 2

taste in music/clothes/men etc

have similar/different tastes

develop/acquire a taste for something (=start to like something)

suit/satisfy/cater for somebody's tastes (=provide what someone likes)

have expensive tastes (=like expensive things)

something is a matter of taste (=it depends on what kind of things you like)

personal taste

musical taste (=the kind of music someone likes)

be too bright/modern/dark etc for somebody's taste (=used when saying that you did not like something because it was too bright, modern, dark etc)

be to somebody's taste (=if something is to your taste, you like it)

there's no accounting for taste (=used humorously to say that you do not understand why someone has chosen something)

something is an acquired taste (=people only usually start to like something after they have tried it several times)

WORD FOCUS: words meaning taste

delicious/tasty tastes very good

disgusting tastes very bad

hot/spicy has a lot of spices

bland boring and with not very much taste

sweet has a lot of sugar

salty has a lot of salt

sour used about fruit that is not sweet

bitter used about coffee, chocolate, or medicine that is not at all sweet

See also: flavour

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taste ²

taste² v

[Date: 1200-1300; : Old French; Origin: taster 'to touch, test, taste', from Vulgar Latin taxitare, from Latin taxare; TAX²]

1.) [linking verb]

to have a particular kind of taste

taste good/delicious/sweet/fresh etc

▪ Mmm! This tastes good!

▪ The food tasted better than it looked.

taste awful/disgusting etc

▪ The liver tasted awful and the potatoes had not been cooked for long enough.

taste of

▪ This yoghurt tastes of strawberries.

▪ It didn't taste much of ginger.

taste like

▪ It tastes just like champagne to me.

▪ What does pumpkin taste like (=how would you describe its taste) ?

sweet-tasting/strong-tasting etc

▪ a sweet-tasting soup

▪ a bitter-tasting liquid

2.) [T not in progressive]

to experience or recognize the taste of food or drink

▪ She could taste blood.

▪ Can you taste the difference?

▪ It was like nothing I'd ever tasted before.

3.) [T]

to eat or drink a small amount of something to see what it is like

▪ It's always best to keep tasting the food while you're cooking it.

4.) taste success/freedom/victory etc

to have a short experience of something that you want more of

▪ There was a lot of hard work before we first tasted success.