degust
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Verb
[edit]degust (third-person singular simple present degusts, present participle degusting, simple past and past participle degusted)
- To taste carefully to fully appreciate something; to savour
- 1883, R.L. Stevenson, “Napa wine”, in The Silverado Squatters[1], Chatto and Windus, →ISBN, page 35f.:
- If wine is to withdraw its most poetic countenance, the sun of the white dinner-cloth, a deity to be invoked by two or three, all fervent, hushing their talk, degusting tenderly and storing reminiscences &emdash; for a bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect — if wine is to desert us, go thy ways, old Jack! Now we begin to have compunctions, and look back at the brave bottles squandered upon dinner-parties, where the guests drank grossly, discussing politics the while, and even the schoolboy "took his whack," like liquorice water.
- 1892, M. Betham-Edwards, A north-country comedy[2], J.B. Lippincott, page 17:
- The bread was passing stale the cheese a trifle hard the beer somewhat flat but the pair had never degusted a meal with more relish.
- 1895, O. Crawfurd, Chapman's Magazine of Fiction[3], volume 1, Chapman & Hall, page 269:
- I began to tell him all the tale of the demons, at which relation, first of all, he cried "Pshaw!"... But after he had degusted the matter a little he bade me repeat it all again from the beginning...
- 1898, L. Menand, Autobiography and Recollections of Incidents Connected with Horticultural Affairs[4], page 78:
- He took the bottle filled up his glass half full and degusted it, *en connoisseur*, and said it is good but mine at home is better, it is older
- 1904, F.T. Bullen, Creatures of the Sea: Being the Life Stories of Some Sea Beasts and Fishes[5], Religious Tract Society, page 409:
- as the bird soars once more, the observer may see it [the fish] being slowly degusted.
- 2008, J. Hurt, S. Ehlers, “Introduction”, in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cheeses of the World: A Tasteful Guide to Selecting, Serving, and Enjoying Cheese[7], DK Publishing, →ISBN, page 27:
- This book is meant to help you along in your own quest for cheese, and I hope that you do taste the cheeses that you read about. By the time you finish this book you should have degusted a lot of wonderful cheese.