The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Taste \Taste\ (t[=a]st), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Tasted; p. pr. &
   vb. n. Tasting.] [OE. tasten to feel, to taste, OF. taster,
   F. tater to feel, to try by the touch, to try, to taste,
   (assumed) LL. taxitare, fr. L. taxare to touch sharply, to
   estimate. See Tax, v. t.]
   1. To try by the touch; to handle; as, to taste a bow. [Obs.]
      --Chapman.
      [1913 Webster]

            Taste it well and stone thou shalt it find.
                                                  --Chaucer.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To try by the touch of the tongue; to perceive the relish
      or flavor of (anything) by taking a small quantity into a
      mouth. Also used figuratively.
      [1913 Webster]

            When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water
            that was made wine.                   --John ii. 9.
      [1913 Webster]

            When Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became
            incapable of pity or remorse.         --Gibbon.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. To try by eating a little; to eat a small quantity of.
      [1913 Webster]

            I tasted a little of this honey.      --1 Sam. xiv.
                                                  29.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. To become acquainted with by actual trial; to essay; to
      experience; to undergo.
      [1913 Webster]

            He . . . should taste death for every man. --Heb.
                                                  ii. 9.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. To partake of; to participate in; -- usually with an
      implied sense of relish or pleasure.
      [1913 Webster]

            Thou . . . wilt taste
            No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitary. --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Tasting \Tast"ing\, n.
   The act of perceiving or tasting by the organs of taste; the
   faculty or sense by which we perceive or distinguish savors.
   [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

tasting
    n 1: a small amount (especially of food or wine)
    2: a kind of sensing; distinguishing substances by means of the
       taste buds; "a wine tasting" [syn: taste, tasting]
    3: taking a small amount into the mouth to test its quality;
       "cooking was fine but it was the savoring that he enjoyed
       most" [syn: tasting, savoring, savouring, relishing,
       degustation]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

62 Moby Thesaurus words for "tasting":
   appetite, cannibalism, carnivorism, carnivority, carnivorousness,
   chewing, compotation, consumption, cropping, deglutition,
   devouring, devourment, dieting, dining, drinking, drunkenness,
   eating, epulation, feasting, feeding, gluttony, gobbling, grazing,
   gulping, gustation, guzzling, herbivorism, herbivority,
   herbivorousness, hunger, imbibing, imbibition, ingestion, lapping,
   licking, manducation, mastication, messing, munching, nibbling,
   nipping, nutrition, omnivorism, omnivorousness, omophagy,
   pantophagy, pasture, pasturing, pecking, potation, pulling,
   quaffing, regalement, relishing, rumination, savoring, slipping,
   swigging, swilling, symposium, vegetarianism, wolfing