tasting blood

Verb

taste blood (third-person singular simple present tastes blood, present participle tasting blood, simple past and past participle tasted blood)

1. (figuratively) To sense weakness in another, encouraging one to attack.
   • […] in those few moments I had proved myself a cyclist of such enormous cool, such dazzling technique, that I knew I would never again slow down for an advancing truck, veer to avoid a threatening limousine, or hesitate to plunge into the midst of a pedestrian phalanx. I had tasted blood, and now I...1968 January, Henry S. Resnik, “Passion on a Bicycle”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN, archived from the original on 06 Dec 2022
2. (figuratively) To press home an advantage in a debate, etc.
3. (broadly, figuratively) To take pleasure in something new.