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.
Three months later, they were filming a taster for the documentary on location in Mexico.
From BBC • Jun. 1, 2026
So far, the pair have been using four venues in Wokingham, Caversham, Theale and Tilehurst for their taster sessions.
From BBC • Jan. 26, 2026
Kelly Tanner from Blackwood, Caerphilly, arranged for her nine-year old "football-mad" daughter Elen to have a taster session, before she then paid £300 for 10 sessions.
From BBC • Nov. 20, 2024
Lots of clubs run taster sessions at weekends and during school holidays- so you can get the whole family involved!
From BBC • Mar. 29, 2024
Every product in the supermarket can be analyzed along these lines, and after a taster has worked with these scales for years, they become embedded in the taster’s unconscious.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
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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.