taste

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

• intransitive verb To distinguish the flavor of by taking into the mouth.
• intransitive verb To eat or drink a small quantity of.
• intransitive verb To partake of, especially for the first time; experience.
• intransitive verb Archaic To appreciate or enjoy.
• intransitive verb To distinguish flavors in the mouth.
• intransitive verb To have a distinct flavor.
• intransitive verb To eat or drink a small amount.
• intransitive verb To have experience or enjoyment; partake.
• noun The sense that distinguishes the sweet, sour, salty, and bitter qualities of dissolved substances in contact with the taste buds on the tongue.
• noun This sense in combination with the senses of smell and touch, which together receive a sensation of a substance in the mouth.
• noun The sensation of sweet, sour, salty, or bitter qualities produced by a substance placed in the mouth.
• noun The unified sensation produced by any of these qualities plus a distinct smell and texture; flavor.
• noun A distinctive perception as if by the sense of taste.
• noun The act of tasting.
• noun A small quantity eaten or tasted.
• noun A limited or first experience; a sample.
• noun A personal preference or liking.
• noun The ability to recognize and appreciate what is beautiful, excellent, or appropriate.
• noun The sense of what is proper, seemly, or least likely to give offense in a given social situation.
• noun Obsolete The act of testing; trial.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To touch; test by touching; handle; feel.
• To prove; test; try; examine.
• To test or prove by the tongue or palate; take into the mouth in small quantity, in order to try the flavor or relish; specifically, to test for purposes of trade.
• To eat or drink; try by eating or drinking, as by morsels or sips.
• To perceive or distinguish by means of the tongue or palate; perceive the flavor of.
• To give a flavor or relish to.
• To have a taste for; relish; enjoy; like.
• To be agreeable or relishing to; please.
• To perceive; recognize; take cognizance of.
• To know by experience; prove; undergo.
• To participate in; partake of, often with the idea of relish or enjoyment.
• To smell.
• To enjoy carnally.
• To touch; feel for; explore by touching.
• To try food or drink by the lips and palate; eat or drink a little by way of trial, or to test the flavor; take a taste: often with of before the object.
• To have a smack; have a particular flavor, savor, or relish when applied to the organs of taste: often followed by of.
• To have perception, experience, or enjoyment: often with of.
• noun The act of examining or inquiring into by any of the organs of sense; the act of trying or testing, as by observation or feeling; hence, experience; experiment; test; trial.
• noun The act of tasting; gustation.
• noun A particular sensation excited in the organs of taste by the contact of certain soluble and sapid things; savor; flavor; relish: as, the taste of fish or fruit; an unpleasant taste.
• noun The sense by which the relish or savor of a thing is perceived when it is brought into immediate contact with special organs situated within the cavity of the mouth.
• noun Intellectual discernment or appreciation; relish; fondness; predilection: formerly followed by of, now usually by for.
• noun In esthetics, the faculty of discerning with emotions of pleasure beauty, grace, congruity, proportion, symmetry, order, or whatever constitutes excellence, particularly in the fine arts and literature; that faculty or susceptibility of the mind by which we both perceive and enjoy whatever is beautiful, harmonious, and true in the works of nature and art, the perception of these qualities being attended with an emotion of pleasure.
• noun Manner, with respect to what is pleasing, becoming, or in agreement with the rules of good behavior and social propriety; the pervading air, the choice of conditions and relations, and the general arrangement and treatment in any work of art, by which esthetic perception or the lack of it in the artist or author is evinced; style as an expression of propriety and fitness: as, a poem or music composed in good taste.
• noun A small portion given as a sample; a morsel, bit, or sip tasted, eaten, or drunk; hence, generally, something perceived, experienced, enjoyed, or suffered.
• noun Scent; odor; smell.
• noun Synonyms Taste, Savor, Flavor, Smack. Taste is the general word, so far as the sense of taste is concerned: as, the taste of an apple may be good, bad, strong, woody, earthy, etc. Savor and flavor may apply to the sense of taste or to that of smell. Savor in taste generally applies to food, but is otherwise rather indefinite: as, to detect a savor of garlic in soup. Flavor is generally good, but sometimes bad: it is often the predominating natural taste: as, the flavor of one variety of apple is more marked or more palatable than that of another. Smack is a slight taste, or, figuratively, a faint smell, generally the result of something not disagreeable added to the thing which is tasted or smelled: as, a smack of vanilla in ice-cream; a smack of salt in the sea-breeze.
• noun Taste, Sensibility. Taste is active, deciding, choosing, changing, arranging, etc.; sensibility is passive, the power to feel, susceptibility of impression, as from the beautiful.