flavorless

English

WOTD – 20 October 2011

Alternative forms

• flavourless (British spelling)

Etymology

From flavor +‎ -less.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈfleɪvɚləs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfleɪvələs/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Adjective

flavorless (comparative more flavorless, superlative most flavorless)

1. Lacking taste or flavor; without seasoning, spice, or discernible qualities of taste.
   • 1876 September, “Miscellany”, in Popular Science Monthly, volume 9:

     Salt oysters, on being transferred to fresh water, are "fattened" in the course of two or three days ; if allowed to remain longer they become lean again, and are flavorless.

   • 1882, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter XVIII, in Doctor Grimshawe's Secret: A romance:

     […] and as for fruit, the high garden wall was lined with pear trees, spread out flat against it, where they managed to produce a cold, flavorless fruit, a good deal akin to cucumbers.

2. Flat; lacking character or definition.
   • 1902, Bret Harte, Openings in the Old Trail, IV: A Buckeye Hollow Inheritance,

     […] and the gravestone of its dead owner on the hill was no more flavorless of his personality than was this plain house in which he had lived and died.

3. (physics) Without flavor.
   • 2014, Mark A. Cunningham, Neoclassical Physics, page 241:

     On the other hand, Pauli had just proposed a massless, chargeless, colorless, flavorless particle whose sole reason for existence was to preserve the principle of momentum conservation.

Synonyms

• (lacking taste): insipid
• (lacking character): insipid

Translations

lacking taste or flavor

• Czech: bez chuti
• Danish: smagløs
• Faroese: smakkleysur
• Finnish: mauton (fi)
• German: fad (de), fade (de), geschmacklos (de)
• Greek: ακαρύκευτος (el) (akarýkeftos)

  Ancient: ἄγευστος (ágeustos)

• Latin: insulsus
• Maori: mākihakiha
• Marathi: बेचव (becav)
• Ottoman Turkish: طاتسز (tatsız), لذتسز (lezzetsiz), یاوان (yavan)
• Plautdietsch: schmaklooss
• Punjabi: ਰਸਹੀਣ (rashīṇ)
• Russian: безвкусный (ru) (bezvkusnyj), без запаха (bez zapaxa)
• Slovak: bez chuti
• Spanish: soso (es) m, desaborido (es) m, chirle (es), insulso (es) m, insípido (es) m
• Swedish: smaklös (sv), jolmig (sv), fadd (sv)
• Turkish: tatsız (tr), lezzetsiz (tr), sası (tr)

flat; lacking character or definition

• Finnish: mitäänsanomaton (fi)
• Russian: пре́сный (ru) (présnyj), безжизненный (ru) (bezžiznennyj), вя́лый (ru) (vjályj)