1. The roof of the mouth in vertebrates having a complete or partial separation of the oral and nasal cavities and consisting of the hard palate and the soft palate.
2. Botany. The projecting part on the lower lip of a bilabiate corolla that closes the throat, as in a snapdragon.
3. The sense of taste: delicacies pleasing to the most refined palate.

[Middle English, from Old French palat, from Latin palātum, perhaps of Etruscan origin.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.