geuō

At its plainest the word means to taste or to eat. In everyday Greek it sat closer to "take food" than to "sample lightly": its opposite was not eating fully but going without food at all. That is why oaths of fasting reach for it, as when Paul's would-be killers swear to "taste nothing" until they act. The ordinary verb for eating (ἐσθίω) names the act flatly; this word keeps the sense of tasting, and it stretches naturally into the realm of experience.

That stretch is old and strong. Long before the Bible, Greek writers spoke of "tasting" battle, freedom, or grief, and never meant a cautious nibble; they meant a real trial of the thing. The Greek Old Testament made this the standard rendering of the Hebrew verb "to taste, to perceive" (טָעַם), so the invitation to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8) calls for firsthand knowledge of God, not a wary sip. In this experiential reach the word runs close to "to know" (γινώσκω), but it is knowledge gained by living through something rather than by hearing about it.

The New Testament keeps that full force. To have "tasted the heavenly gift" (Hebrews 6:4) is to have genuinely experienced it, and "tasting death" is a fixed expression for actually dying. The trouble is that the English word "taste" pulls the other way, hinting at a small or trial portion, so these figurative lines can sound weaker than the Greek intends.