1. [common] Variety, type, kind. "DDT
commands come in two flavors." "These lights come in two
flavors, big red ones and small green ones." "Linux is a flavor
of Unix" 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superseded (notably by the Common LISP CLOS facility), the term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.
