What's the verb for "to drink small amounts of drink"? [closed]

Solution 1:

sip is the common word, but it does not denote 'to enjoy it as slowly and long as possibly'. For that, I suggest savor (UK: savour)

Taste (good food or drink) and enjoy it to the full

He has dinner and actually savors the wine, rather than drinking to get drunk.

1.1

Enjoy or appreciate (something pleasant) to the full, especially by lingering over it

(Oxford Dictionaries)

sip

Drink (something) by taking small mouthfuls.

‘I sat sipping coffee’ ‘she sipped at her tea’

(Oxford Dictionaries)

You can definitely savor a good cup of coffee. A difference is this: if your coffee is hot, you can use she sipped her coffee because it was hot but you wouldn't really say she savored her coffee because it was hot. You'd say she savored her coffee because it was delicious.

sip is also a occurs as a noun, meaning

A small mouthful of liquid (Oxford)

And we say stuff like take a sip (very common) and have a sip. She took a sip of wine is equal to she sipped her wine (one time).

Thesaurus.com lists these synonyms for sip (verb):

drink in, extract, imbibe, partake, quaff, sample, savor, sup, swallow, taste, toss

Only savor includes the notion of enjoy as part of its definition. Quaff means to 'drink (alcoholic beverages) heartily' but does not include the sense of slow enjoyment. In fact, it can be more of an antonym, since 'drink heartedly' can entail drinking quickly.