n. 1. The act of tasting; gustation. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. (Physiol.) 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Taste depends mainly on the contact of soluble matter with the terminal organs (connected with branches of the glossopharyngeal and other nerves) in the papillae 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. Intellectual relish; liking; fondness; -- formerly with of, now with for; as, he had no taste for study. [ 1913 Webster ]

I have no taste
Of popular applause. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

6. 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

7. Essay; trial; experience; experiment. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

8. A small portion given as a specimen; a little piece tasted or eaten; a bit. Bacon. [ 1913 Webster ]

9. A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon. [ 1913 Webster ]

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 aesthetic 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.” [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

Taste buds, or
Taste 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Tasted; p. pr. & vb. n. Tasting. ] [ OE. tasten to feel, to taste, OF. taster, F. tater to feel, to try by the touch, to try, to taste, (assumed) LL. taxitare, fr. L. taxare to touch sharply, to estimate. See Tax, v. t. ] 1. To try by the touch; to handle; as, to taste a bow. [ Obs. ] Chapman. [ 1913 Webster ]

Taste it well and stone thou shalt it find. Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine. John ii. 9. [ 1913 Webster ]

When Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse. Gibbon. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of. [ 1913 Webster ]

I tasted a little of this honey. 1 Sam. xiv. 29. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. To become acquainted with by actual trial; to essay; to experience; to undergo. [ 1913 Webster ]

He . . . should taste death for every man. Heb. ii. 9. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. To partake of; to participate in; -- usually with an implied sense of relish or pleasure. [ 1913 Webster ]

Thou . . . wilt taste
No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitary. Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. 1. 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason
Shall to the king taste of this action. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To take sparingly. [ 1913 Webster ]

For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. To have perception, experience, or enjoyment; to partake; as, to taste of nature's bounty. Waller. [ 1913 Webster ]

The valiant never taste of death but once. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. 1. Having a high relish; savory. “Tasteful herbs.” Pope. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Having or exhibiting good taste; in accordance with good taste; tasty; as, a tasteful drapery. [ 1913 Webster ]

-- Taste"ful*ly, adv. -- Taste"ful*ness, n. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. 1. Having no taste; insipid; flat; as, tasteless fruit. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Destitute of the sense of taste; or of good taste; as, a tasteless age. Orrery. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Not in accordance with good taste; as, a tasteless arrangement of drapery; a tasteless remark. [ 1913 Webster ]

-- Taste"less*ly, adv. -- Taste"less*ness, n. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. One who tastes; especially, one who first tastes food or drink to ascertain its quality. [ 1913 Webster ]

Thy tutor be thy taster, ere thou eat. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. That in which, or by which, anything is tasted, as, a dram cup, a cheese taster, or the like. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. (Zool.) One of a peculiar kind of zooids situated on the polyp-stem of certain Siphonophora. They somewhat resemble the feeding zooids, but are destitute of mouths. See Siphonophora. [ 1913 Webster ]