Other forms: palates
A palate is a person's ability to judge flavours. A refined palate, a good palate, cleanse the palate.
It is the wine and food word for discrimination in taste, and it is trainable — a trained palate can name components a beginner cannot separate. Literally, the palate is the roof of the mouth, hard at the front and soft at the back. Note cleansing the palate between dishes; and the spelling trap with palette for paint and pallet for freight.
1nounpalateA person's ability to judge flavours.
“The chef has a refined palate and can name every herb in a sauce.”
2nounroofThe roof of the mouth.
“He burned his palate on the hot melted cheese.”
palate is a sense of taste, or a mouth part.
Latin palatum means the roof of the mouth, perhaps from Etruscan. The sense of taste as judgement is a metaphor English shares with most European languages.
Middle English
palate
English, today
palate
From Middle English palate. From Middle English palate, from Latin palātum (“roof of the mouth, palate”), perhaps of Etruscan origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA