Degusto, as, âre. Plin. To taste: to take a little say: to touch or speake briefly of a thing.Degustabant nouas fruges. Plin. They tasted or assayed. Odorari & degustare aliquem.Cic.To smell out and taste what maner of manne one is: to perceiue or feele a little what he is.Ignes degustant tigna celeri flamma. Lucret. The fire wyth a quicke flame touched or entred vpon the rafters. Degustare. Quin. Degustanda tamen hæc, non consÛmanda. We must touch these things, or speake of them brieslye.Degustare genus aliquod exercitationum.Cic.To assay.Imperium & tu Galba quandoque degustabis.Tacit.Thou also shalt a while taste of the empire: or be emperoure for a little time.Degustare mentes, sensúsque eorÛ apud quos acturi sumus. Cicero. To perceiue or feele the mindes and phantasies of them before whome we shall pleade.Degustare pauca de fabulis.Cic.Degustare pauca ex orationibus.Cic.To reade a little out of the orations, as it were for a say.Celeri degustat singula sensu. Claud. Aliquid speculæ ex sermone alicuius degustare.Cic.To conceiue a little hope by ones wordes.Degustare vitam aliquam.Cic.To taste or assay any kind of life.
Lewis and Short: Latin dictionary
dē-gusto, āvi, ātum, 1, v. a., to taste, and thus diminish a thing (cf. delibo and a)pogeu/omai—rare but class., esp. in the trop. sense). I.Lit.: vinum, Cato R. R. 148: pabulum, Varr. R. R. 2, 5, 15: novas fruges aut vina, Plin. 18, 2, 2, 8: vasa vel dolia, Dig. 18, 6, 1.—B.Poet. transf., of fire: ignes flammā degustant tigna trabesque,
lick
, Lucr. 2, 192. And of a weapon that slightly touches, grazes: (lancea) summum degustat volnere corpus, Verg. A. 12, 376; imitated by Sil. 5, 274.—II.Trop.A.To try, make trial of, make one's self acquainted with: eandem vitam, Cic. Tusc. 5, 21: literas primis labris, Quint. 12, 2, 4: aliquid speculae ex ejus sermone, Cic. Clu. 26, 72: aliquid de fabulis, Brut. in Cic. Att. 13, 40: genus hoc exercitationum, Cic. Par. prooem. fin.: summatim ingenia maximorum virorum, Sen. Ep. 33: imperium, Tac. A. 6, 20 fin.: istum convivam tuum, Cic. Att. 4, 8 fin.—B. (Acc. to no. I. B.) To touch slightly upon, to treat briefly of: plures materiae inchoatae et quasi degustatae, Quint. 10, 5, 23: haec prooemio (opp. consumere), id. 4, 1, 14: genera (opp. excutere bibliothecas), id. 10, 1, 104.