taste
/teɪst/noun, verb
taste is spelled T-A-S-T-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 54 times per million words in written English, the 1,899th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, taste means “One of the sensations produced by the tongue in response to certain chemicals; the quality of giving this sensation” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of taste is tastes.
How many letters and syllables are in taste?
| Letters | 5: T-A-S-T-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 54 times per million words; the 1,899th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is taste?
Taste appears 54 times per million words in written English, the 1,899th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce taste?
- /teɪst/
Taste has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-taste.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with taste?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as taste.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: state, testa.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of taste
- tastes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- tasting participle, present
- tasted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does taste mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
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.
- 2
The sense that consists in the perception and interpretation of this sensation.
His taste was impaired by an illness.
- 3
A small sample of food, drink, or recreational drugs.
- 4
A person's implicit set of preferences, especially esthetic, though also culinary, sartorial, etc.
Dr. Parker has good taste in wine.
- 5
Personal preference; liking; predilection.
I have developed a taste for fine wine.
- 6
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.
- 7
A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
- 8
The least amount or portion of something; a jot.
verb
- 1
To sample the flavor of something orally.
- 2
To have a taste; to excite a particular sensation by which flavor is distinguished.
The chicken tasted great, but the milk tasted like garlic.
- 3
To identify (a flavor) by sampling something orally.
I can definitely taste the marzipan in this cake.
- 4
To experience.
I tasted in her arms the delights of paradise.
- 5
To take sparingly.
- 6
To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
- 7
obsoleteTo try by the touch; to handle.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Taste in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | goût, saveur , avant-goût , goûter , avoir un goût , goûter de |
| German | Geschmack, Schmecken , kosten, probieren , schmecken |
| Portuguese | gosto, sabor , prova , sentir o gosto (de), provar , paladar |
| Spanish | gusto , muestra , gustar , gustos , probadura, cata |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does taste come from?
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).