| voltaic taste | A metallic or sour taste produced by the application of static electricity to the tongue. Synonym: voltaic taste. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| colour taste | A form of synesthesia in which the colour sense and taste are associated, with stimulation of either sense inducing a subjective sensation in the associated sense. Synonym: pseudogeusesthesia. (05 Mar 2000) |
| organ of taste | Located in the papillae of the mucous membrane of the tongue, chiefly in the vallate papillae. Synonym: organum gustus, organ of taste. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste | 1. To try by the touch; to handle; as, to taste a bow. "Taste it well and stone thou shalt it find." (Chaucer) 2. To try by the touch of the tongue; to perceive the relish or flavor of (anything) by taking a small quantity into a mouth. Also used figuratively. "When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine." (John II. 9) "When Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse." (Gibbon) 3. To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of. "I tasted a little of this honey." (1 Sam. Xiv. 29) 4. To become acquainted with by actual trial; to essay; to experience; to undergo. "He . . . Should taste death for every man." (Heb. Ii. 9) 5. To partake of; to participate in; usually with an implied sense of relish or pleasure. "Thou . . . Wilt taste No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitary." (Milton) Origin: OE. Tasten to feel, to taste, OF. Taster, F. Tater to feel, to try by the touch, to try, to taste, (assumed) LL. Taxitare, fr. L. Taxare to touch sharply, to estimate. See Tax. 1. The act of tasting; gustation. 2. A particular sensation excited by the application of a substance to the tongue; the quality or savor of any substance as perceived by means of the tongue; flavor; as, the taste of an orange or an apple; a bitter taste; an acid taste; a sweet taste. 3. <physiology> The one of the five senses by which certain properties of bodies (called their taste, savor, flavor) are ascertained by contact with the organs of taste. Taste depends mainly on the contact of soluble matter with the terminal organs (connected with branches of the glossopharyngeal and other nerves) in the papillae on the surface of the tongue. The base of the tongue is considered most sensitive to bitter substances, the point to sweet and acid substances. 4. Intellectual relish; liking; fondness; formerly with of, now with for; as, he had no taste for study. "I have no taste Of popular applause." (Dryden) 5. The power of perceiving and relishing excellence in human performances; the faculty of discerning beauty, order, congruity, proportion, symmetry, or whatever constitutes excellence, particularly in the fine arts and belles-letters; critical judgment; discernment. 6. Manner, with respect to what is pleasing, refined, or in accordance with good usage; style; as, music composed in good taste; an epitaph in bad taste. 7. Essay; trial; experience; experiment. 8. A small portion given as a specimen; a little piece tastted of eaten; a bit. 9. A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon. Synonym: Savor, relish, flavor, sensibility, gout. Taste, Sensibility, Judgment. Some consider taste as a mere sensibility, and others as a simple exercise of judgment; but a union of both is requisite to the existence of anything which deserves the name. An original sense of the beautiful is just as necessary to aesthetic judgments, as a sense of right and wrong to the formation of any just conclusions or moral subjects. But this "sense of the beautiful" is not an arbitrary principle. It is under the guidance of reason; it grows in delicacy and correctness with the progress of the individual and of society at large; it has its laws, which are seated in the nature of man; and it is in the development of these laws that we find the true "standard of taste." "What, then, is taste, but those internal powers, Active and strong, and feelingly alive To each fine impulse? a discerning sense Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust From things deformed, or disarranged, or gross In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold, Nor purple state, nor culture, can bestow, But God alone, when first his active hand Imprints the secret bias of the soul. <anatomy> " (Akenside) Taste of buds, or Taste of goblets, the flask-shaped end organs of taste in the epithelium of the tongue. They are made up of modified epithelial cells arranged somewhat like leaves in a bud. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| taste blindness | Inability to appreciate gustatory stimuli. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste bud | One of a number of flask-shaped cell nests located in the epithelium of vallate, fungiform, and foliate papillae of the tongue and also in the soft palate, epiglottis, and posterior wall of the pharynx; it consists of sustentacular, gustatory, and basal cells between which the intragemmal sensory nerve fibres terminate. Synonym: caliculus gustatorius, gustatory bud, Schwalbe's corpuscle, taste bulb, taste corpuscle. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste buds | Small sensory organs which contain gustatory receptor cells, basal cells, and supporting cells. Taste buds in humans are found in the epithelia of the tongue, palate, and pharynx. They are innervated by the chorda tympani nerve (a branch of the facial nerve) and the glossopharyngeal nerve. (12 Dec 1998) |
| taste bulb | One of a number of flask-shaped cell nests located in the epithelium of vallate, fungiform, and foliate papillae of the tongue and also in the soft palate, epiglottis, and posterior wall of the pharynx; it consists of sustentacular, gustatory, and basal cells between which the intragemmal sensory nerve fibres terminate. Synonym: caliculus gustatorius, gustatory bud, Schwalbe's corpuscle, taste bulb, taste corpuscle. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste cells | Darkly staining cell's in a taste bud that appear to have extending into the gustatory pore long hair-like microvilli containing a number of closely packed microtubules; the taste cell's stand in synaptic contact with sensory nerve fibres of the facial, glossopharyngeal, or vagus nerves. Synonym: gustatory cells. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste corpuscle | One of a number of flask-shaped cell nests located in the epithelium of vallate, fungiform, and foliate papillae of the tongue and also in the soft palate, epiglottis, and posterior wall of the pharynx; it consists of sustentacular, gustatory, and basal cells between which the intragemmal sensory nerve fibres terminate. Synonym: caliculus gustatorius, gustatory bud, Schwalbe's corpuscle, taste bulb, taste corpuscle. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste deficiency | Reduced or absent ability to detect a bitter taste in a group of compounds of which phenylthiocarbamide is the prototype, due to the homozygous state of a common allele. See: phenylthiourea. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste hairs | Hairlike projections of gustatory cells of taste buds; electron micrographs show them to be clusters of microvilli. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste pore | The minute opening of a taste bud on the surface of the oral mucosa through which the gustatory hairs of the specialised neuroepithelial gustatory cells project. Synonym: porus gustatorius, taste pore. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste ridge | One of the ridge's surrounding the vallate papillae of the tongue. (05 Mar 2000) |
| taste threshold | The minimum concentration at which taste sensitivity to a particular substance or food can be perceived. (12 Dec 1998) |