savour
English
Alternative forms
- savor (chiefly US)
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -eɪvə(r)
Etymology 1
Borrowed from Old French savour, from Latin sapor (“taste, flavor”), from sapiō (“taste of, have a flavor of”).
Noun
savour (plural savours)
- The specific taste or smell of something.
- 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, Ch.5:
- He held out to me a bowl of steaming broth, that filled the room with a savour sweeter, ten thousand times, to me than every rose and lily of the world; yet would not let me drink it at a gulp, but made me sip it with a spoon like any baby.
- 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter I, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:
- Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy […] distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.
- 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, Ch.5:
- A distinctive sensation.
- (Can we date this quote?) Richard Baxter
- Why is not my life a continual joy, and the savour of heaven perpetually upon my spirit?
- (Can we date this quote?) Richard Baxter
- Sense of smell; power to scent, or trace by scent.
- (Can we date this quote?) George Herbert
- beyond my savour
- (Can we date this quote?) George Herbert
Translations
the specific taste or smell of something
Etymology 2
Borrowed from Old French savourer, from savour, or possibly Late Latin sapōrāre, present active infinitive of sapōrō, from sapor (“taste, flavor”), from sapiō (“taste of, have a flavor of”).
Verb
savour (third-person singular simple present savours, present participle savouring, simple past and past participle savoured)
- (intransitive) To possess a particular taste or smell, or a distinctive quality.
- (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare
- This savours not much of distraction.
- (Can we date this quote?) Addison
- I have rejected everything that savours of party.
- (Can we date this quote?) Rev. Joseph Bellamy
- Begone, thou impudent wretch, to hell, thy proper place: thou art a despiser of my glorious majesty, and your frame of spirit savours of blasphemy.
- (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare
- (transitive) To appreciate, enjoy or relish something.
Translations
to possess a particular taste or smell, or a distinctive quality
to appreciate, enjoy or relish something
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Old French
Etymology
From Latin sapor, sapōrem.
Quotations
- For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:savour.
Derived terms
Descendants
- French: saveur
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