English

Alternative forms

• savor (chiefly US)

Noun

savour ‎(plural savours)

1. The specific taste or smell of something.
   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, Ch.5:

     He held out to me a bowl of steaming broth, that filled the room with a savour sweeter, ten thousand times, to me than every rose and lily of the world; yet would not let me drink it at a gulp, but made me sip it with a spoon like any baby.

   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, Nobody, chapter I:

     Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy […] distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.

2. A distinctive sensation.
   • Richard Baxter (1615-1691)

     Why is not my life a continual joy, and the savour of heaven perpetually upon my spirit?

3. Sense of smell; power to scent, or trace by scent.
   • George Herbert (1593-1633)

     beyond my savour

Verb

savour ‎(third-person singular simple present savours, present participle savouring, simple past and past participle savoured)

1. (intransitive) to possess a particular taste or smell, or a distinctive quality.
   • Shakespeare

     This savours not much of distraction.

   • Addison

     I have rejected everything that savours of party.

   • Rev. Joseph Bellamy

     Begone, thou impudent wretch, to ****, thy proper place: thou art a despiser of my glorious majesty, and your frame of spirit savours of blasphemy.

2. (transitive) to appreciate, enjoy or relish something.

Translations

Old French

Etymology

From Latin sapor, sapōrem.

Noun

savour m ‎(oblique plural savours, nominative singular savours, nominative plural savour)

1. taste

Derived terms

• savourer

Descendants

• French: saveur

Quotations

• For usage examples of this term, see Citations:savour.