Savouring

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The experience of enjoying flavors in food or drink while appreciating a moment or feeling deeply and taking the time to cherish something fully
2. The enjoyment derived from tasting food or drink slowly and relishing a moment or emotion with profound appreciation
3. The act of fully experiencing and enjoying the taste of food or drink ; the process of appreciating a moment or feeling with deep attention and gratitude

Etymology: The verb "savour" is a good example of a word whose meaning moved from the tongue to the mind. Its ancestor, Latin "sapor", meant simply flavour, and the Latin verb "sapere" meant to taste or have a flavour. From these came "sapōrāre", a Late Latin verb meaning to give flavour or make something tasty, and it was this that passed through Old French "savorer" into Middle English as "savouren". The sense of enjoying something slowly grew out of that literal tasting. To savour something is to let its flavour linger on the palate, and English writers gradually applied the same idea to pleasures that had no taste at all, such as a song, a memory or a piece of good news. The physical act of tasting became a model for attentive, drawn-out enjoyment. English also has a noun, "savour", which came from Anglo-Norman and Old French "saveur". It is a doublet of "sapor", meaning the two words entered English by separate routes from the same Latin source, so the older Latin word survives in English twice over.

Synonyms: enjoying, tasting, relishing

Antonyms: disliking, avoiding