seasoned

1. 1
   adjective

   Containing added salt, herbs, spices, or other flavorings, especially in the case of a food or liquid.

   A well seasoned gravy can lift an otherwise dull roast.

   The cook ladled out a generous bowl of richly seasoned stew.

   Similarflavored, spiced

   Oppositebland, unseasoned

   Note

   Cooks use it to mark the step from a plain base to a finished liquid. Hallee Bridgeman defines broth simply as 'seasoned stock,' and the phrase turns up across cookbooks, from Leonard Jacobs's Cooking with Seitan (1994) onward. The flavoring can be named in front, hyphenated before the noun ('a herb-seasoned loaf'). Adverbs like well or richly say how strongly.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having considerable experience, especially within a profession, skill, or long-held hobby.

   Twenty years on the force had made her a seasoned investigator.

   The expedition needed a seasoned guide who had crossed the pass before.

   Similarexperienced, veteran, practiced, expert, skilled

   Oppositeinexperienced, green, raw, untried

   Note

   Usually sits before the person it praises: a seasoned traveler, player, actor. It stretches to groups as well. Jamie Lillywhite, writing in BBC Sport in 2011, calls Rubin Kazan 'a seasoned Champions League outfit.' The word is gradable, so more seasoned and most seasoned are natural. The image is that of wood or a person hardened by long exposure: experience as something that toughens you over time.

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of season.

   The chef seasoned the soup with fresh herbs just before serving.

   The oak planks were seasoned for two years before the carpenter shaped them.

   Note

   One spelling serves both past forms of a verb with two quite different jobs. In cooking it means tempering something by mixing another thing in. With wood it means drying or hardening, as with planks left to cure. The verb also works without an object (the timber seasoned slowly), so a passive is not the only way to say the wood is ready. Its 'inure, accustom' strand leads straight to the "experienced" adjective.

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