noun
mass noun formalThe action or faculty of tasting.
‘Recent findings on the sensitivity of primate olfaction and gustation to ethanol are consistent with this notion.’- ‘The receptors involved in gustation are found in specialized ‘end-organs’ called taste buds.’
- ‘However, gustation refers only to the sensations of sweet, sour, salty, savory, and bitter, and thus the pleasant ‘taste’ to which we refer is actually a pleasant odor sensed retronasally.’
- ‘To taste an object it must be dissolved in the process of gustation in order for the taste buds to experience a flavour and for the throat to swallow what was the intact object.’
- ‘This suggests that the two genes are expressed in cells that are important for gustation.’
Origin
Late 16th century from Latin gustatio(n-), from gustare ‘to taste’, from gustus ‘taste’.
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