degusto

Forms

dēgustō (present infinitive dēgustāre, perfect active dēgustāvī, supine dēgustātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + gustō (“to taste”).^[2][1][3] gustō is an intensive built on the participle of an old verb for "taste", which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *ǵ(e)us- (“to taste”); the old verb survives in Festus' ⟨dēgūnere⟩, which he glosses with ⟨dēgustāre⟩.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL reads it from Cato, Varro and Cicero on;^[3] Cato has wine tasted and judged at the discretion of an honest man.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It means to take a taste of, eat or drink a little of: Varro has wine tasted as a medicine and fodder sampled, and Pliny the Elder new crops and wines.^[2][5] Lucan uses it of bees sipping thyme.^[2] It is also to judge by tasting, as Cato's wine.^[2] Lucretius has fires licking at beams with their flame, and Virgil a spear that grazes the surface of a body.^[5] Figuratively it is to have a brief experience of, to sample: Brutus, writing to Cicero, wishes he had tasted something of the stories, Cicero speaks of judging people's minds and feelings, and Quintilian of tasting letters with the tip of the lips.^[2][5] Tacitus uses it of tasting power.^[5] Quintilian also uses it of touching briefly on a subject.^[5] Lewis & Short call it rare but classical, especially in the figurative sense.^[5] Stelten gives "taste, partake of" for Church Latin.^[6]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato of tasting wine.^[2][3]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of tasting wine and fodder.^[2][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of fire licking at beams.^[5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of judging minds.^[2]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a spear grazing the body.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To taste, eat or drink a little of;^[2][5][1] (of bees) to sip;^[2][5][1] (of fire, a weapon) to lick, graze.^[2][5][1]
2. To judge by tasting, test.^[2][1]
3. (figurative) To have a taste of, try, sample; to form a judgement of; to touch briefly on.^[2][5][1]

Word family

• dēgustātiō

Related words

• praegustō
• regustō
• gustō
• gustus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson