Taste

Taste Taste, 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]

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. [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.

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 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]