Savour, savoury
Savour comes from Lat. sapor taste (from snpere to taste) through the Old Fr. savour (mod. saveur). It was used first of all, in iccordance with its derivation, for the taste or relish of a thing ; then it passed to the expression of the kindred sense of smell ; and from this it was easily used in the fig. sense of name or reputation. All these uses are found in AV. (1) Taste: Mt 5'» || Lk W* 'If the salt have lost his savour {/lupavdy), wherewith shall it be salte<l?'
{a\ttr$r}a€Tai ; in Lk ipTv6r,<j(Tai, EV 'be seasoned'). The tr. in both places is from the Geneva version of 1557. The meaning is probably more than mere taste, rather 'virtue,' its power to make food 'savoury' (.see the quotation from Udall's Erasmus at tho end of this art.) (2) Smell: Jl 2"° 'His stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up' (iniqs. Gov. ' his lylthy corrupcion,' Gen. ' his corruption ') ; elsewhere in OT always ' sweet savour ' (itob.
n-i, except Ezr 6'" 'sacrifices of sweet savcmrs,' Aram. |'n\n"i). In the Apocrypha evuSlais rendered a ' good savour ' in 1 I'^s l'-', a ' sweet savour ' in Sir 35° 38" ; other examples of the word are 2 Es 2'- ' for an ointment of sweet savour ' {in odorem unguenti). Sir 39'* ' give ye a sweet savour ' ((vuBiaaoiTt dafi-fi"), 50" ' a sweet- smelling savour' [6<rfLiiv evwSiat). In NT euwSia is tr. ' sweet savour ' in 2 Co 2'°, and 6<x/j.^ (vuSlat is tr.
'a sweet-smelling savour' in Eph 5'' (but in Ph 4" 'an odour of a sweet smell'); elsewhere we find ia-ii-fi alone, 2 Co 2'* ' the savour of his know- ledge,' i.e. the sweet smell of the knowledge of God ((Sir/ijji' T^s yyuxTfui airroO) ; and 2'° 'To one we are the savour of death unto death ; and to the other the savour of life unto life ' (ofs fiiv, 6ir^^ 6avdTov eU Odvarov' oU Si, dufiij i'wJJs f/s fwijf ; edd. iii.sert ix before Oai/aTov and before s""")'. whence KV 'from death . .
from life'). Cf. Mandeville Travels (in ' Macniillan's Lib. of. Eng. Classics, p. 113), 'And at the foot of that mount is a fair well and a great, that hath odour and savour of all spices'; Jn 1'2' Wye. 'the hous was fulfillid of the savour of the oynemento ' ; Jer 48" Gov.
' hir taist reinayneth, and bir savoore is not yet 416 SAW SCEPTKE changed ' ; and the Note to Lv 1' in Matthew's Bible, ' This sv'cte odoure is : the sacryfyce of fayth and of |nire aU'eccjron, in wliych God is as delited, as a man is delited in tlie good savoure of meates, as it is said of Noe, Gen. viii. d.' (3) Figuratively, rrputntiun. Ex 5^^ ' Ye have made our savour to be abhorred (AVm 'to stink') in the eyes of Pharaoh.' Cf. also Gn. 31*', 1 S 13^ 2 S 10", and the Eng.
' to be in {or to bring into) bad odour.' The verb 'to savour' is (1) to taste or smell of, as I'ref. to AV, 'Thus to minse the matter, we tliought to savour more of curiosity than wisdome.' (2) To seek out by taste or smell, as Cranmer, Jforks, i. 181, ' By this you may soon savour what judgment this m.-in is of.' So in AV Mt IG^" || Mk 8^ ' thou savourest not the things that be of God ' (oi5 (ppot'ch), Vulg. non sapis, whence Wye.
'thou saveri-st not,' and all following versions till RV, 'thou mindest not.' Cf. Bunyau, Soly War, p. 25, ' And that w hich made him yet the more ignoble . . was, that he never could savour good, but evil.' Tlie ailj. ' savoury ' occurs in AV only in Gn 27'' 7. 9. u. 17. 31 Qf {i,g < savoury meat ' which Isaac loved (Heb. c-;yL-D always plu., from D*n to taste). The word is also found in Is 30-'' marg.
, and accepted into KV text, AV ' clean,' RVm ' salted,' in refer- ence to the provender of oxen and young asses (Heb. i"-ri ^'V?, Oxf. Hcb. Lex. ' provender seasoned with salt or a salt herb, rendering it more tasty'). Cf. Udall, Erasmus' Paraph, i. 19 (on Alt 5'^), ' It muste nedes bee a lively and a piththie thynge that can be sufficient to sawce and make savourie the life of all mankynde, being so werishe and unsavourye thorowe the desyres and fond opinions of vayne thynges.' J. Hastings.