flavor
Americannoun
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flavors
plural
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taste, especially the distinctive taste of something as it is experienced in the mouth.
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a substance or extract that provides a particular taste; flavoring.
- Synonyms:
- seasoning
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the characteristic quality of a thing.
He captured the flavor of the experience in his book.
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a particular quality noticeable in a thing.
language with a strong nautical flavor.
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Physics. any of the six labels given to the distinct kinds of quark: up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top.
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Archaic. smell, odor, or aroma.
verb (used with object)
Synonym Usage
See taste.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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preflavornoun
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overflavorverb
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deflavorverb (used with object)
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flavorlessadjective
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unflavoredadjective
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well-flavoredadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of flavor
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Middle French fla(o)ur, from unattested Late Latin flātor “stench, breath,” alteration of Latin flātus a “blowing, breathing,” ( see flatus), perhaps with -or of fētor fetor
Explanation
Flavor is the way something tastes. If an ice cream shop offers 50 flavors, each one of them will taste different. The flavor of your soup can be adjusted by adding salt — and when you add ingredients to change a food's taste, you can say you flavor it. From the flavor of food comes the sense of flavor meaning "atmosphere" or "feeling." You could say, for example, that you're not crazy about a particular clothing shop because it has such a glitzy, expensive flavor. Flavor initially meant "smell," from the Vulgar Latin flator, "odor."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“They help bring the flavor of fun, and that’s exactly what we want to do here,” Neece says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
“That have complex flavor profiles, that are not just juice and a splash of soda or a lime or something.”
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
There’s an influx of new items, but existing pickle-flavored products are also selling well—like PepsiCo’s Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle Cheetos, which became the fastest-selling limited-edition flavor in the brand’s history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
His parents wanted nothing to do with the flavor of the month, holdbacks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
But they couldn’t drop oil or salt, things that would have given the food some taste, so the food had almost no flavor at all.
From "Lost Boy, Lost Girl" by John Bul Dau
On a recent Friday, scientists cultivated living tissue, engineers tested new flavors for an 80-gram protein bar for the U.S. military and interns modeled coastal erosion on Maui.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
Instead, Conagra is leaning on the appeal of cozy and nostalgic flavors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
Estrada-Londo, who is from the Philippines, takes inspiration from Asian desserts, which tend to play with flavors that can be surprising to Western palates.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
Scientists have identified the bacteria that help give three British artisan cheeses their distinctive flavors, and some of those microbes may also have potential benefits for human health.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026
I was familiar with fear, yet each time I felt it, it was never the same as the other times, as though it came in different flavors and colors.
From "Purple Hibiscus" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
