degust means to taste carefully to fully appreciate something; to savour. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why “degust” is a great word
DEGUST — [Verb] To taste with deliberate, appreciative attention, savoring its full character. From French déguster, from Latin dēgustāre, from dē- (completely) + gustāre (to taste). First attested in English in 1623. Unlike "gobble," which implies greedy haste, or "sample," which suggests a cursory trial, to degust is to perform a patient ceremony of the senses. It is the conscious swirl of wine to separate notes of oak and berry, the slow dissolution of a square of dark chocolate on the tongue, or the silent contemplation of an oyster yielding its briny essence—a small, sustained rebellion against a world of heedless consumption.
Etymology
From French déguster. Doublet of degustate.
verb
- To taste carefully to fully appreciate something; to savour“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 b”