tastes

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of taste.

   This stew tastes far too salty for my liking.

   She carefully tastes each sauce before sending the plates out.

   Note

   The verb works two ways, and what follows it shows which one. As a linking verb it takes an adjective that describes the flavor: the stew tastes salty, the milk tastes sour, never "tastes saltily." As a transitive verb it takes an object, the thing being sampled: she tastes each sauce. The same spelling also serves the plural noun, as in her tastes in music.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of taste.

   Their musical tastes shifted as they grew older.

   The chef offered several tiny tastes of the new tasting menu.

   Note

   Only the countable meanings take a plural. Preferences pluralize readily: Robert W. Chambers has a character announce "My tastes incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet" in The Younger Set (1907). Small samples do too, as in several tastes of a dish. The faculty of perceiving flavor normally stays singular: a keen sense of taste, not of tastes.

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