“tasted” is a form of
taste
/teɪst/ noun, verb
Forms tastes tasting tasted tast
- noun One of the sensations produced by the tongue in response to certain chemicals; the quality of giving this sensation. “He had a strange taste in his mouth.”
- noun The sense that consists in the perception and interpretation of this sensation. “His taste was impaired by an illness.”
- noun A small sample of food, drink, or recreational drugs.
- noun (countable and uncountable) A person's implicit set of preferences, especially esthetic, though also culinary, sartorial, etc. “Dr. Parker has good taste in wine.”
- noun Personal preference; liking; predilection. “I have developed a taste for fine wine.”
- noun (figuratively) A small amount of experience with something that gives a sense of its quality as a whole. “Such anecdotes give one a taste of life on a trauma ward.”
- noun A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
- noun (dialect) The least amount or portion of something; a jot.
- verb (transitive) To sample the flavor of something orally.
- verb (intransitive, copulative) To have a taste; to excite a particular sensation by which flavor is distinguished. “The chicken tasted great, but the milk tasted like garlic.”
- verb (transitive) To identify (a flavor) by sampling something orally. “I can definitely taste the marzipan in this cake.”
- verb (transitive, figurative) To experience. “I tasted in her arms the delights of paradise.”
- verb To take sparingly.
- verb To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
- verb (obsolete) To try by the touch; to handle.
Synonyms
smack palate discernment culture refinement style impression sample trial smatch hint smake gust taste sensation gustatory sensation taste perception gustatory perception preference penchant predilection appreciation perceptiveness mouthful gustation sense of taste gustatory modality tasting savor savour try
Etymology
The verb is from Middle English tasten, borrowed from Old French taster (“to taste, touch or hit”), from unattested Vulgar Latin *tastāre (“to touch or feel”), from *taxitāre, an innovated iterative form of Classical Latin taxāre (“to touch sharply”), from tangere (“to touch, to grasp”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g-, which is assumed to have had the same meaning as tangere.
The noun came from the verb, and the two conflated after English lost its infinitive suffix -en, though tasten was most likely already used nominatively (as a gerund), similar to Modern English tasting.
Almost fully displaced native smack, from Middle English smac, smak, smacke, from Old English smæc, smæċċ (“taste, smatch”).
Displaced English smatch, from Middle English smacchen, smecchen, from Old English smæċċan (“to taste; to smack”); displaced also Middle English buriȝen, from Old English bierġan (“to taste”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To try by the touch; to handle; as, to taste a bow. [Obs.]
- verb 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.
- verb 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.
- verb 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.
Etymology [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.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “taste”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details