Flavor

How to spell flavor

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce flavor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does flavor mean?

1. nounThe distinctive taste of a food or drink, or a particular variety of it.
2. verbTo give a particular taste to food or drink.

Flavor in a sentence

• noun

  The new ice cream flavor sold out within an hour.

• verb

  Chefs often flavor the broth with fresh ginger and garlic.

• noun

  A pinch of salt brings out the natural flavor of the tomatoes.

• verb

  A few drops of vanilla can flavor an entire batch of batter.

Where does flavor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin flator, meaning 'a blower' or 'one who blows', linked to flare 'to blow', and in Late Latin it drifted toward the sense of an odour or breath carried on the air. It entered English in the 1300s through Old French flaour or fleur, originally meaning a smell or aroma rather than a taste; the connection between scent and taste is natural, since much of what we perceive as flavor is actually smell. Over the following centuries the meaning narrowed and shifted toward the modern idea of the quality something has on the tongue. The British and Canadian spelling kept the French-influenced 'flavour', while American English dropped the 'u' under Noah Webster's nineteenth-century reforms that regularised the whole -our group to -or. That single missing 'u' is the only real spelling trap, and it is purely a matter of which dialect you write in.

How the word is built

• flavor (taste, quality of taste)
• no affix; from Latin flator via Old French; American -or spelling of the -our family

British and American spelling

Flavor is the American spelling. British English spells it flavour.