Definition of "savour"

He held out to me a bowl of steaming broth, that filled the room with a savour sweeter, ten thousand times, to me than every rose and lily of the world; yet would not let me drink it at a gulp, but made me sip it with a spoon like any baby.

1898, J. Meade Falkner, chapter 5, in Moonfleet, London, Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934

Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy […] distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.

1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter I, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915

Why is not my life a continual joy, and the savour of heaven perpetually upon my spirit?

1650, Richard Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest

beyond my savour

, George Herbert, edited by [Nicholas Ferrar], The Temple: Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, […]; reprinted London: Elliot Stock, […], 1885,

This savours not much of distraction.

c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i]

I have rejected everything that savours of party.

1712 January 11 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “MONDAY, December 31, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 262; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853

Begone, thou impudent wretch, to hell, thy proper place: thou art a despiser of my glorious majesty, and your frame of spirit savours of blasphemy.

1750, Joseph Bellamy, True Religion Delineated

A journey along the Conwy Valley line is one to savour for aficionados of scenic railways.

2020 August 26, Andrew Mourant, “Reinforced against future flooding”, in Rail, page 58

[…] divers sorts of fish; some baked in bread, some broiled on the coals, some seethed, some in gravy savoured with spices, and all with condiments so cunning that it caused him delight.

1974, W. R. Barron, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (modern translation)