Taste Teɪst I Unusual Recognize Extra Examples Mouth

• a sweet/salty/bitter/sour taste
• i don't like the taste of olives.
• this dish has an unusual combination of tastes and textures.
• the soup has very little taste.

taste

1. the particular quality that different foods and drinks have that allows you to recognize them when you put them in your mouth
• a sweet/salty/bitter/sour taste
• I don't like the taste of olives.
• This dish has an unusual combination of tastes and textures.
• The soup has very little taste.

Extra Examples

• Don't have a cigarette now—you'll spoil the taste of your food!
• He sensed the taste of blood in his mouth.
• I had a strong coffee to take away the nasty taste of the food.
• She savoured the taste of the champagne.
• The drink left a bitter taste in his mouth.
• You need to use fresh herbs to get the authentic Italian taste.
2. the sense you have that allows you to recognize different foods and drinks when you put them in your mouth
• I've lost my sense of taste.
3. a small quantity of food or drink that you try in order to see what it is like
• Just have a taste of this cheese.
• Do you want a taste?
4. a short experience of something
• This was my first taste of live theatre.
• Although we didn't know it, this incident was a taste of things to come.
5. a person’s ability to choose things that people recognize as being of good quality or appropriate
• He has very good taste in music.
• They've got more money than taste.
• She's famous for her impeccable taste and style.

Extra Examples

• The room was furnished with taste.
• The remark showed a deplorable lack of taste.
• The designer has exercised good taste in her choice of fabrics.
• Her work is executed with impeccable taste.
• Contemporary arbiters of taste dismissed his paintings as rubbish.
6. what a person likes or prefers
• You can adapt the recipe to suit your personal taste.
• That trip gave me a taste for foreign travel.
• to develop/acquire a taste for luxury
• He has very expensive taste in clothes.
• The colour and style is a matter of personal taste
• Modern art is not to everyone's taste.

Extra Examples

• There are trips to suit all tastes.
• They have a taste for adventure.
• Her choice of outfit demonstrated her taste for the outrageous.
• Now he is retired he has time to indulge his tastes for writing and politics.
• People with a taste for complex plots will enjoy this book.
• Her music appeals to popular taste.
• His tastes run to the exotic.
• If fishing is not to your taste, there are many other leisure activities on offer.
• The house reflected his tastes.
• The music was too modern for my taste.
• You obviously share her taste in reading.
• He has an unusual taste in music.
7. a thing that you do not like much at first but gradually learn to like
• Abstract art is an acquired taste.
8. to be offensive and not at all appropriate
• Most of his jokes were in very poor taste.
9. to be appropriate and not at all offensive
• The love scenes are all done in the best possible taste.
10. to make you feel upset or ashamed afterwards
• The whole business left a bad taste in my mouth.
11. the same bad treatment that you have given to others
• Let the bully have a taste of his own medicine.
12. used to say how difficult it is to understand why somebody likes somebody/something that you do not like at all
• She thinks he's wonderful—oh well, there's no accounting for taste.
13. in the quantity that is needed to make something taste the way you prefer
• Add salt and pepper to taste.

Word Origin

• Middle English (also in the sense ‘touch’): from Old French tast (noun), taster (verb) ‘touch, try, taste’, perhaps based on a blend of Latin tangere ‘to touch’ and gustare ‘to taste’.