Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Distinctive taste; savor.
  • noun A distinctive yet intangible quality felt to be characteristic of a given thing.
  • noun A flavoring.
  • noun Any of six types of quark (down, up, strange, charm, bottom, top), distinguished by generation, electric charge, and mass.
  • noun Any of six types of lepton (electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tauon, tau neutrino), distinguished by generation, electric charge, and mass.
  • noun Archaic Aroma; fragrance.
  • transitive verb To give flavor to.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To communicate flavor or some quality of taste or smell to; hence, to communicate any distinctive quality to.
  • To add a flavoring substance or admixture to.
  • noun The quality of a substance which affects the smell; smell; odor; fragrance: as, the flavor of the rose.
  • noun The quality of a substance which affects the taste, especially that quality which gratifies the palate; relish; zest: as, the flavor of the peach, of wine, etc.; a spicy flavor.
  • noun Figuratively, the quality of anything which affects the mental taste or perception, especially in a pleasurable way; characteristic fitness, congruity, impressiveness, or the like, particularly from a literary or artistic point of view.
  • noun That which imparts flavor; a flavoring substance or essence.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To give flavor to; to add something (as salt or a spice) to, to give character or zest.
  • noun That quality of anything which affects the smell; odor; fragrances.
  • noun That quality of anything which affects the taste; that quality which gratifies the palate; relish; zest; savor.
  • noun That which imparts to anything a peculiar odor or taste, gratifying to the sense of smell, or the nicer perceptions of the palate; a substance which flavors.
  • noun That quality which gives character to any of the productions of literature or the fine arts.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The quality produced by the sensation of taste.
  • noun A substance used to produce a taste; flavoring.
  • noun A variety of tastes attributed to an object.
  • noun The characteristic quality of something.
  • noun A type of something.
  • noun physics a term used to name the six types of quarks (top, bottom, strange, charmed, up, and down) or three types of leptons (electron, muon, and tauon).
  • verb transitive To add flavoring to (something).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb lend flavor to
  • noun (physics) the six kinds of quarks
  • noun the taste experience when a savoury condiment is taken into the mouth
  • noun the general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English flavour, aroma, from Old French flaor (perhaps influenced in form by Middle English savour, taste, savor), from Vulgar Latin *flātor, from Latin flāre, to blow; see bhlē- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English meaning "smell, odor", usually pleasing, from Old French flaour ("smell, odor"), from Vulgar Latin flator ("odor, that which blows"), from Latin flator ("blower"), from flare ("to blow, puff")

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  • There are six different types of quark, usually known as flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.

    February 7, 2008