See Also: Taste(medicine)
taste(1)(dictionary)
taste(2)(dictionary)
taste bud(dictionary)
taste bud(medicine)
taste(dictionary)
taste(encyclopedia)
voltaic taste(medicine)
taste 1, noun(dictionary)
taste 2, verb(dictionary)

idiosyncrasy (iou) and taste(1) (iou)


idiosyncrasy (iou)



idiosyncrasy noun. E17.
[Greek idiosugkrasia, -krasis, from idios IDIO- + sugkrasis commixture, tempering, from sun- SYN- + krasis CRASIS.]
Orig., the physical constitution peculiar to an individual. Now only in Medicine, abnormal individual sensitivity to a Food or drug. E17.
A mental constitution, view, feeling, or mode of behaviour peculiar to a person, nation, etc.; something highly individualized or eccentric. M17.
C. Beaton The surprised eyebrows..the bold gestures..all of these idiosyncrasies are derived from Lina Cavalieri. C. Rycroft The absence of imagery accompanying thought seems to be an idiosyncrasy common among scientists. R. Strange My intentions have been orthodox. Idiosyncrasy would be misplaced here.
A mode of expression peculiar to an author. M19.

taste(1) (iou)



taste noun1. ME.
[Old French tast, from taster TASTE verb.]
I.
The sense of touch; the action of touching, touch. Only in ME.
An attempt (rare). Also, an act of testing; a test, an examination. ME-M17.
Shakespeare King Lear He wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue.
II. The action of tasting, or perceiving a flavour with the tongue or Other organ; the fact of being tasted. ME-M18.
Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet The sweetest honey..in the taste confounds the appetite.
a. A small portion of Food or drink to be tasted as a sample, a sip; US slang (an) alcoholic drink. LME.
W. Trevor A taste of sherry..? I have a nice sweet little sherry.
b. fig. A slight experience (of). LME.
K. Amis How do you like your first taste of teaching?
The faculty or sense of perceiving the characteristic sensation produced in the tongue or Other organ by contact with a substance, esp. a soluble one. LME.
Cornhill Magazine Taste..is not equally distributed over the whole surface of the tongue alike.
a. The sensation produced in the tongue or Other organ by contact with a substance, esp. a soluble one; savour, sapidity; the characteristic sensation so produced by a specified substance. LME.
M. Amis The taste of milk in my mouth. fig.: Shakespeare Macbeth I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
b. Odour, scent, smell. LME-L15.
III.
Mental perception of quality; judgement, discriminative faculty. obsolete exc. as passing into sense 9. ME.
Dryden If..they demand of me..more than discretion in Commerce, and a taste in Confidence.
The fact or condition of liking or preferring something; an inclination, liking, or predilection for. LME.
Swift Whoever hath a taste for true humour. A. Wilson Neither the elaborate whimsy nor the leer were to Sonia's taste.
b. Enjoyment, pleasure. (Foll. by in, of.) E17-E18.
The sense of what is appropriate, harmonious, or beautiful; aesthetic discernment in Art, literature, Fashion, etc. LME.
G. M. Trevelyan In the Eighteenth Century, taste had not yet been vitiated by too much machine production. D. L. Sayers He has excellent taste in ties,..socks, and things like that.
b. Style or manner exhibiting aesthetic discernment, esp. that characteristic of a specified period or country; good or bad aesthetic quality (freq. with specifying word). M18.
C. Hare Nothing..could have been in worse taste than this observation. Times A pair of George III mahogany armchairs in the French taste.
Phrases: a bad taste in the mouth, a bitter taste in the mouth, etc., colloq. a lingering feeling of repugnance or disgust left behind by a distasteful or unpleasant experience. ACQUIRED taste. a taste of one's own medicine: see MEDICINE noun1. BURNT taste. out of taste (now rare or obsolete) not able to distinguish flavours.
Comb.: taste-blind adjective insensitive to taste; unable to taste a specified substance; taste-blindness the state or condition of being taste-blind; taste bud, taste bulb any of the groups of cells which provide the sense of taste in mammals, forming small swellings on the surface of the tongue; taste-cup, taste-pit Entomology an olfactory sensillum which consists of a minute pit in the body wall with a conical sensory peg in the centre; taste-test verb trans. test (a thing) by tasting, test the taste of (a thing).
tastesome adjective (obsolete exc. Scot. rare) pleasant to the taste, tasty L16.