flavour

Everyday

1. Flavour is the taste of food or drink: a lemon flavour. tree →
2. A flavour is one kind of taste that a food is made in: ice cream comes in many flavours. tree →
3. To flavour means to add something to food to give it a taste: flavour the soup with herbs. tree →
4. Flavour can mean the special feeling or character of something: the festival had a Mexican flavour. tree →

In the lessons

In science, flavour comes from taste (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami — detected by the tongue) and smell together; when your nose is blocked, food tastes of less. In everyday life, children choose flavours of ice cream, crisps and juice; food labels say «artificial flavourings». In maths, flavour data is used for tally charts and bar graphs («our class's favourite ice-cream flavours»). Phrases: favourite flavour, strawberry flavour, full of flavour, flavour of the month.

Examples

• What's your favourite ice-cream flavour? tree →
• Chocolate is the most popular flavour in our class tally. tree →
• Mum flavoured the rice with garlic and lemon. tree →
• When you have a cold, food has less flavour. tree →
• These crisps are cheese and onion flavour. tree →
• Fresh herbs add flavour to the pasta. tree →
• The town fair had a real seaside flavour. tree →
• The Town Mouse came, and they sat down to a dinner of barleycorns and roots, the latter of which had a distinctly earthy flavour. tree →

Note

Spelling: «flavour» in British, Irish, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand English; «flavor» in American English. Countable (flavours). «Flavoured» (with real or added taste) is on many food labels.