TASTE, v.t.

1. The act of tasting; gustation. Milton.
2. A particular sensation excited in an animal by the application of a substance to the tongue, the proper organ; as, the taste of an orange or an apple; a bitter taste; an acid taste; a sweet taste.
3. The sense by which we perceive the relish of a thing. This sense appears to reside in the tongue or its papillæ. Men have a great variety of tastes. In the influenza of 1790, the taste, for some days, was entirely extinguished.
4. Intellectual relish; as, he had no taste of true glory. Addison. I have no taste / Of popular applause. Dryden. Note. In this use, the word is now followed by for. “He had no taste for glory.” When followed by of, the sense is ambiguous, or rather it denotes experience, trial.
5. Judgment; discernment; nice perception, or 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 lettres. Taste is not wholly the gift of nature, nor wholly the effect of art. It depends much on culture. We say, a good taste, or a fine taste. Gerard.
6. Style; manner, with respect to what is pleasing; as, a poem or music composed in good taste. Cyc.
7. Essay; trial; experiment. [Not in use.] Shak.
8. A small portion given as a specimen.
9. A bit; a little piece tasted or eaten.

1. To try by the mouth; to eat or drink; or to eat or drink a little only; as, to taste of each kind of wine.
2. To have a smack; to excite a particular sensation, by which the quality or flavor is distinguished; as, butter tastes of garlic; apples boiled in a brass-kettle, sometimes taste of brass.
3. To distinguish intellectually. Scholars, when good sense describing, / Call it tasting and imbibing. Swift.
4. To try the relish of any thing. Taste of the fruits; taste for yourself.
5. To be tinctured; to have a particular quality or character. Ev'ry idle, nice and wanton reason / Shall, to the king, taste of this action. Shak.
6. To experience; to have perception of. The valiant never taste of death but once. Shak.
7. To take to be enjoyed. Of nature's bounty men forbore to taste. Waller.
8. To enjoy sparingly. For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours. Dryden.
9. To have the experience or enjoyment of. They who have tasted of the heavenly gift, and the good word of God. Heb. vi.

1. To perceive by means of the tongue; to have a certain sensation in consequence of something applied to the tongue, the organ of taste; as, to taste bread; to taste wine; to taste a sweet or an acid.
2. To try the relish of by the perception of the organs of taste.
3. To try by eating a little; or to eat a little. Because I tasted a little of this honey. 1 Sam. xiv.
4. To essay first. Dryden.
5. To have pleasure from. Carew.
6. To experience; to feel; to undergo. That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. Heb. ii.
7. To relish intellectually; to enjoy. Thou, Adam, wilt taste no pleasure. Milton.
8. To experience by shedding, as blood. When Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse. Gibbon.

1. To try by the touch] to handle; as, to taste a bow.
   
   
   [Obs.] Chapman.

   Taste it well and stone thou shalt it find. Chaucer.

2. 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.
3. The act of tasting; gustation.
4. 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.
   
   

   When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine. John ii. 9.

   When Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse. Gibbon.

5. 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.
   
   

   Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason
   Shall to the king taste of this action. Shak.

6. 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.
7. To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
   
   

   I tasted a little of this honey. 1 Sam. xiv. 29.

8. To take sparingly.
   
   

   For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours. Dryden.

9. 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.
   
   

   * Taste depends mainly on the contact of soluble matter with the terminal organs (connected with branches of the glossopharyngeal and other nerves) in the papillæ 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.

10. To become acquainted with by actual trial; to essay; to experience; to undergo.
    
    

    He . . . should taste death for every man. Heb. ii. 9.

11. To have perception, experience, or enjoyment; to partake; as, to taste of nature's bounty.
    
    
    Waller.

    The valiant never taste of death but once. Shak.

12. Intellectual relish; liking; fondness; -- formerly with of, now with for; as, he had no taste for study.
    
    

    I have no taste
    Of popular applause. Dryden.

13. To partake of; to participate in; -- usually with an implied sense of relish or pleasure.
    
    

    Thou . . . wilt taste
    No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitary. Milton.

14. 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.
15. 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.
16. Essay; trial; experience; experiment.
    
    
    Shak.
17. A small portion given as a specimen; a little piece tasted or eaten; a bit.
    
    
    Bacon.
18. A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
    
    

    Syn. -- Savor; relish; flavor; sensibility; gout. -- 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 æsthetic 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."

    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.

    Taste of buds, or Taste of 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.