umami

[ oo-mah-mee ]

noun

1. a strong meaty taste imparted by glutamate and certain other amino acids: often considered to be one of the basic taste sensations along with sweet, sour, bitter, and salty.

Word History and Origins

Origin of umami¹

First recorded in 1960–65; from Japanese: literally, “savory quality, delicious taste,” equivalent to uma-, the inflectional stem of umai “(to be) delicious” + -mi, a suffix forming abstract nouns from adjectives

Example Sentences

This unsmoked, wet-cured ham is the sine qua non of Parisian butcher shops: a light, ephemeral meat, sweet but umami.

From The Daily Beast

If “umami” was recently accepted into the lexicon...maybe “tomato-ey” isn't that far behind.

From The Daily Beast