Tasteless Definition, Meaning & Usage | FineDictionary.com
Fine Dictionary

tasteless

ˈteɪstləs
WordNet
  1. (adj) tasteless
    lacking aesthetic or social taste
  2. (adj) tasteless
    lacking flavor
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
  1. Tasteless
    Destitute of the sense of taste; or of good taste; as, a tasteless age.
  2. Tasteless
    Having no taste; insipid; flat; as, tasteless fruit.
  3. Tasteless
    Not in accordance with good taste; as, a tasteless arrangement of drapery; a tasteless remark.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
  1. tasteless
    Having no taste. Exciting no sensation in the organs of taste; insipid: as, a tasteless medicine.
  2. tasteless
    Incapable of the sense of taste: as, the tongue when furred is nearly tasteless.
  3. tasteless
    Having no power of giving pleasure; stale; insipid; uninteresting; dull.
  4. tasteless
    Not in accordance with the principles of good taste.
  5. tasteless
    Destitute of the power to appreciate or enjoy what is excellent, beautiful, or harmonious; having bad or false taste: as, a tasteless age.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
  1. (adj) Tasteless
    without taste: insipid
Quotations
The food here is so tasteless you could eat a meal of it and belch and it wouldn't remind you of anything.
Redd Foxx
Etymology

Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary O. Fr. taster (Fr. tâter), as if from Low L. taxitāre—L. taxāre, to touch repeatedly, to estimate—tangĕre, to touch.

Usage in the news

What's the most tasteless Halloween food costume. ashingtonpost.com

9/11 advertising gets truly tasteless By Tim Nudd. adweek.com

Erykah Badu Calls Controversial Video ' Tasteless '. essence.com

DEAR ABBY Cancer patient is stunned by woman's tasteless joke. daily-jeff.com

Foreclosure Firm's Tasteless Halloween Party Mocked the Homeless. kezj.com

Critic of Mormonism calls Romney " tasteless ". blog.chron.com

This year's most tasteless moments. ashingtonpost.com

Axelrod Reacts to " Tasteless " Criticisms. ashingtonpost.com

The War Between alt. tasteless and rec.pets.cats. ired.com

McKenna staffer resigns over tasteless tweets. king5.com

In what can only be one of the most tasteless thing I have ever seen. power959.com

David Letterman is in the doghouse for doing a Stupid Human Trick (telling a tasteless joke) but his Stupid Pet Tricks are still a treat. blog.seattlepi.com

Sounds like a perfectly tasteless event—let's hope it is. connecticutmag.com

I am deeply insulted by Rob Roger's tasteless attempt at humor in his Dec 6 cartoon. post-gazette.com

R&B bad boy Chris Brown took down his Twitter account Sunday night after getting into a beef with a female comedian in a series of tasteless tweets. kbtx.com

Usage in scientific papers

Tastes must be combined in a staggered quark correlator so that the overall correlation function is ‘tasteless’.
Precision tests of the J/{\psi} from full lattice QCD: mass, leptonic width and radiative decay rate to {\eta}_c

The local staggered temporal vector current (γ0 ⊗ γ0 in spin-taste notation) is inserted at t and the restriction for staggered 3-point functions of an overall tasteless correlator is avoided by the spin content of the NRQCD propagator.
Precision tests of the J/{\psi} from full lattice QCD: mass, leptonic width and radiative decay rate to {\eta}_c

Usage in literature

He must preserve the books from damp and vermin, as well as from the hands of trifling, ignorant, dirty, and tasteless persons. "The Private Library" by Arthur L. Humphreys

After they had finished the almost-tasteless meal he began the search. "Deathworld" by Harry Harrison

If cooking is hurried they will be woody and tasteless. "Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts" by Girl Scouts

Now it seemed slimy and tasteless. "The Saracen: Land of the Infidel" by Robert Shea

Being perfectly tasteless, it will not alter the flavour of the most delicate broth or gruel. "The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches," by Mary Eaton

He says they are rather tasteless, tough, slightly woody in flavor. "The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise" by M. E. Hard

Larry took the dish eagerly and gulped down the rather insipid and tasteless food. "The Pygmy Planet" by John Stewart Williamson

For months she had fed on lean and tasteless trout exhausted by spawning. "Creatures of the Night" by Alfred W. Rees

When they began to eat the meat, it was so tasteless they couldn't eat it. "Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17)" by Various

Their flesh is not eaten, except that of the young ones, for it is tough and tasteless. "Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers" by Various

Usage in poetry
I walk among them all alone,
His silly, stupid wife;
The world seems tasteless, dead and done -
An empty thing is life.
"A Tragedy" by Edith Nesbit Author object (157)
This day, two hundred years ago,
The wild grape by the river's side,
And tasteless groundnut trailing low,
The table of the woods supplied.
"A Song Of Harvest" by John Greenleaf Whittier Author object (377)
Clean, neat and lovely let her be,
From aukwardness and slutt'ry free:
Cold, tasteless, joyless, faint, the love,
(That's on a slattern plac'd) will prove.
"Advice To A Young Man, Before He Goes A Courting" by Rees Prichard
And ye who flutter thro' the vacant hour,
Where tasteless Apathy's empoison'd wand
Arrests the vagrant sense with numbing pow'r,
While vanquish'd REASON bows at her command.
"Stanzas to a Friend" by Mary Darby Robinson Author object (474)
IV. When forced for tasteless crowds to sing,
Or listless sweep the trembling string,
Say, when we meet
The eye whose beam alone inspires,
And wakes the warm soul's latent fires,
Is it not sweet?
"Fragment XXIV." by Sydney Owenson Author object (634)
Now Colonel, to husband you need not be winking,
While wiping the soup with a smile from your lips;
I know just as well as he does how you're thinking
The soup is as tasteless as though made of chips.
"Mrs. Merdle Discourseth Of Things Eatable" by Horatio Alger Jr Author object (302)