jargon (US: flavor) 1. Variety, type, kind. "DDT commands
come in two flavors." "These lights come in two flavors, big
red ones and small green ones." See
vanilla.
2. The attribute that causes something to be
flavourful.
Usually used in the phrase "yields additional flavour". "This
convention yields additional flavor by allowing one to print
text either right-side-up or upside-down." See
vanilla.
This usage was certainly reinforced by the terminology of
quantum chromodynamics, in which quarks (the constituents of,
e.g. protons) come in six flavors (up, down, strange, charm,
top, bottom) and three colours (red, blue, green), however,
hackish use of "flavor" at
MIT predated QCD.
CLOS facility), the term "flavor" is still used as a general
synonym for "class" by some
Lisp hackers.
(1994-11-01)