taste

taste1 [ teıst ] noun ***

▸ 1 flavor

▸ 2 ability to judge if good

▸ 3 types of thing you like

▸ 4 short experience of something

▸ 5 feeling from experience

▸ + PHRASES

1. ) count or uncount the flavor that something creates in your mouth when you eat or drink it. Food can taste sweet like sugar, salty like salt, sour like a lemon, or bitter like strong black coffee:

I love the taste of chocolate.

This peach has a sweeter taste than that one.

Our cheeses are very different in texture and taste.

Add salt to taste (=until you like the taste).

a ) singular a small amount of food or drink that you eat or drink in order to see what flavor it has:

Have a taste of this wine.

Would you like a taste?

b ) uncount your mouth's ability to notice the flavor of different foods and drinks:

The illness can produce a loss of smell and taste.

sense of taste: She doesn't have a very strong sense of taste.

2. ) uncount the ability to judge if something is good or bad in things like art, fashion, and social behavior:

They all admired her taste.

Money cannot make up for bad taste and bad manners.

in good/bad/poor taste: His joke about her divorce was in the worst possible taste.

3. ) count or uncount the types of thing you like, for example in art, music, or clothes:

Our tastes and interests are so different.

The meals are designed to accommodate all tastes.

I don't have expensive tastes (=I don't like expensive things).

The movies appeal to popular taste (=what most people like).

taste in: The girls share his taste in music.

have a taste for something: Even at a young age he had a taste for books.

an acquired taste (=something that you must have many times before you start to like it): Strong black coffee is an acquired taste.

4. ) singular a short experience of something you are not used to:

taste of: After 16 years in prison, it was their first taste of freedom.

Enjoy a taste of Italy with writer Valentina Harris.

5. ) singular MAINLY LITERARY the feeling created by an experience:

the sweet taste of revenge

a bad/nasty/unpleasant taste in your mouth INFORMAL

if an experience leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth, you continue to feel unhappy or angry about it for a while

give someone a taste/dose of their own medicine

to treat someone in the same bad way that they have treated you in the past

=> ACCOUNT FOR

taste

taste 2 [ teıst ] verb **

1. ) linking verb to have a particular flavor:

taste good/bad/salty/sweet/delicious/awful etc.: Although the meal was cold, it tasted delicious.

The fish tasted just as good as it looked.

taste like: This lemonade tastes more like water.

They taste a little like chicken.

taste of: These cookies don't taste of ginger.

2. ) transitive to eat or drink something and experience its flavor:

I've never tasted figs, but I've heard they're very good.

The dinner was one of the best meals I have ever tasted.

a ) to put a small amount of something in your mouth to see what kind of flavor it has:

Visitors will be able to taste different types of wines.

I've tasted the milk and it's definitely sour.

3. ) transitive to experience something for a short time:

taste success/failure/victory: It's been 13 years since they last tasted victory.

4. ) transitive MAINLY LITERARY to realize what someone else is feeling or thinking:

You could taste the fear in the room.

taste blood INFORMAL

to realize that an opponent is almost defeated