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flavor
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flavor /n./ 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 flavorful. Usually used in the phrase
"yields additional flavor". "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 colors (red,
blue, green) -- however, hackish use of `flavor' at MIT predated
QCD. 3. The term for `class' (in the object-oriented sense) in
the LISP Machine Flavors system. Though the Flavors design has
been superseded (notably by the Common LISP CLOS facility), the
term `flavor' is still used as a general synonym for `class'
by some LISP hackers.
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