taster
Americannoun
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a person who tastes, especially one skilled in distinguishing the qualities of liquors, tea, etc., by the taste.
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a container for taking samples or tasting.
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a wide shallow cup, usually metal, for holding wine to be tasted, as by a professional taster.
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a person employed or ordered to taste the food and drink prepared for a king, dictator, etc., to ascertain the presence of poison.
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Genetics. a person able to taste phenylthiourea or some other test substance.
noun
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a person who samples food or drink for quality
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any device used in tasting or sampling
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a person employed, esp formerly, to taste food and drink prepared for a king, etc, to test for poison
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a sample or preview of a product, experience, etc, intended to stimulate interest in the product, experience, etc, itself
the single serves as a taster for the band's new album
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of taster
1350–1400; Middle English tastour < Anglo-French. See taste, -er 1
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:
Beyond tennis, there are a host of leisure centres which offer free fitness class taster sessions, external.
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026
Despite putting himself out there by going to taster sessions for various societies, he couldn't find his people.
From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2025
Robert's advice to first-year students struggling to socialise is to just "get out of your room" and go to club and society taster events until you find one you enjoy.
From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2025
"I know what to expect with the audience... it was a bit of a taster run."
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2025
Every place they stayed was first secured by the King’s Guard, and every meal they ate was first tasted by the King’s chief taster to ensure that the food was not poisoned.
From "Huntress" by Malinda Lo
One way to think about the system is as a group of specialized tasters sampling different aspects of the same complex mixture.
From Science Daily ● May 26, 2026
She describes the way fans were treated to tasters of the trailer as "genius".
From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2026
It’s then that Herrera reveals the percentage each vineyard contributed to the final blend, but only after inserting a past vintage of Red Stitch into the mix unbeknownst to the tasters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 2025
The minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, suggested in March establishing a task force of tasters to monitor quality standards in Italian restaurants around the world, to avoid chefs getting recipes wrong or using ingredients that aren't Italian.
From Reuters ● Nov. 25, 2023
Having lunch with professional food tasters, of course, is a tricky proposition.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
