taster

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: tast=er

CIDE DICTIONARY

taster, n. 

•  One who tastes; especially, one who first tastes food or drink to ascertain its quality.  [1913 Webster]

  "Thy tutor be thy taster, ere thou eat."  [1913 Webster]
•  That in which, or by which, anything is tasted, as, a dram cup, a cheese taster, or the like.  [1913 Webster]
•  One of a peculiar kind of zooids situated on the polyp-stem of certain Siphonophora. They somewhat resemble the feeding zooids, but are destitute of mouths. See Siphonophora.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

taster, n.
1 a person employed to test food or drink by tasting it, esp. for quality or hist. to detect poisoning.
2 a small cup used by a wine-taster.
3 an instrument for extracting a small sample from within a cheese.

Etymology

ME f. AF tastour, OF tasteur f. taster: see TASTE