Taste it well and stone thou shalt it find.
--Chaucer.
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.
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.
3. To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
I tasted a little of this honey. --1 Sam. xiv.
29.
4. To become acquainted with by actual trial; to essay; to
experience; to undergo.
He . . . should taste death for every man. --Heb.
ii. 9.
5. 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.
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.
Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason Shall to
the king taste of this action. --Shak.
For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
--Dryden.
4. 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.
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.
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.
Note: Taste depends mainly on the contact of soluble matter
with the terminal organs (connected with branches of
the glossopharyngeal and other nerves) in the
papill[ae] 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.
4. 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.
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.
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.
7. Essay; trial; experience; experiment. --Shak.
8. A small portion given as a specimen; a little piece
tastted of eaten; a bit. --Bacon.
9. A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
Syn: Savor; relish; flavor; sensibility; gout.
Usage: {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 [ae]sthetic judgments, as a sense of
right and wrong to the formation of any just
conclusions or 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.