Taste vs Least - What's the difference?
taste | least |
One of the sensations produced by the tongue in response to certain chemicals ().
A person's implicit set of preferences, especially esthetic, though also culinary, sartorial, etc. ().
:
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*:"My tastes ," he said, still smiling, "incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet." And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: "I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects;."
*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
, title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=1 A small amount of experience with something that gives a sense of its quality as a whole.
A kind of narrow and thin silk ribbon.
To sample the flavor of something orally.
* Bible, John ii. 9
To have a taste; to excite a particular sensation by which flavour is distinguished.
To experience.
* Shakespeare
* Bible, Heb. ii. 9
* Milton
To take sparingly.
* Dryden
To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
* Bible, 1 Sam. xiv. 29
(obsolete) To try by the touch; to handle.
* Chapman
(little);The smallest amount of [something .
* 1857 , (Edmund March Blunt), The American Coast Pilot: Containing Directions for the Principal Harbors , E. & G.W. Blunt, page 135:
* John Duncan, Duncan's Travels
* , chapter=5
, title= *{{quote-book, year=1959, author=(Georgette Heyer), title=(The Unknown Ajax), chapter=1
, passage=Charles had not been employed above six months at Darracott Place, but he was not such a whopstraw as to make the least noise in the performance of his duties when his lordship was out of humour.}}
* 2004 , Jim Baggott, Beyond Measure: Modern Physics, Philosophy, and the Meaning of Quantum Theory , Oxford University Press, page 48:
Used for forming superlatives of adjectives, especially those that do not form the superlative by adding -est .
In the smallest or lowest degree; in a degree below all others.
As a noun taste
is key, button.As a determiner least is
(little);the smallest amount of [something.As an adverb least is
used for forming superlatives of adjectives, especially those that do not form the superlative by adding -est .taste
English
Alternative forms
* tast (obsolete)Noun
citation, passage=The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when modish taste was just due to go clean out of fashion for the best part of the next hundred years.}}
Synonyms
* smack, smatchHyponyms
* relish, savorDerived terms
* champagne taste on a beer budget * acquired taste * tasteless * taste of one's own medicine * tasty * to tasteVerb
(tast)- when the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine
- The chicken tasted' great, but the milk ' tasted like garlic.
- I tasted in her arms the delights of paradise.
- They had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom.
- The valiant never taste of death but once.
- He should taste death for every man.
- Thou wilt taste / No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitary.
- Age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
- I tasted a little of this honey.
- to taste a bow
Synonyms
* smack, smakeExternal links
* * *Anagrams
* * * 1000 English basic words ----least
English
Determiner
(en-det) (comparative less)- The least water we could find there was 4 fathoms, which bears from the point S.E., and is distant 1½ mile.
- To have demolished and rebuilt the walls, would have been a very costly expedient, and as the least of two evils, the painter's brush was resorted to; here and there however, above some of the windows, the black wreathings of the smoke are still discernible through the white covering.
Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=“Well,” I says, “I cal'late a body could get used to Tophet if he stayed there long enough.” ¶ She flared up; the least mite of a slam at Doctor Wool was enough to set her going.}}
- Light does not need to know in advance which is the path of least time because it takes all paths from its source to its destination.
Usage notes
Some grammarians recommend to use least'' only with uncountable nouns, as in the examples above with the ''smallest amount of sense: * 1965 , H. W. Fowler, Fowler’s Modern English Usage: Second Edition : *: [W]hen the context—unemotional statement of everyday facts—is taken into account, at a less price'' ought to be ''at a lower price'', and ''a lesser prize'' ought to be ''a smaller prize . To such grammarians least'' is the superlative of ''a little'', not that of ''little'', so it does not mean ''smallest'', but ''the smallest amount of''. With plural nouns, they recommend ''fewest .Adverb
- It was the least surprising thing.
- to reward those who least deserve it