basin
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: bā'sən
ipa: /ˈbeɪs(ə)n/
rhymes: -eɪsən
homophone: besan
Forms: form: basins
form: bason
Etymology: From Middle English basyn, from Old French bacin, from Vulgar Latin *baccinum (“wide bowl”).
Senses: examples: text: First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold,
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
ref: c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
text: After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 13:5:
text: What then, you will say, must a man sit with his chops and fingers up to the ears and knuckles in grease? No; let those who cannot eat without defiling themselves, step into another room, provided with basons and towels: but I think it would be better to institute schools, where youth may learn to eat their victuals, without daubing themselves, or giving offence to the eyes of one another.
ref: 1766, T[obias] Smollett, “Letter V”, in Travels through France and Italy. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] R[oberts] Baldwin, […], →OCLC:
text: Everybody had washed before going to bed, apparently, and the bowls were ringed with a dark sediment which the hard, alkaline water had not dissolved. Shutting the door on this disorder, he turned back to the kitchen, took Mahailey’s tin basin, doused his face and head in cold water, and began to plaster down his wet hair.
ref: 1923, Willa Cather, One of Ours, Book One, Chapter 1:
synonyms: sink
glosses: A wide bowl for washing, sometimes affixed to a wall.
examples: text: […] Mr. John Knightley, ashamed of his ill-humour, was now all kindness and attention; and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her father, as to seem—if not quite ready to join him in a basin of gruel—perfectly sensible of its being exceedingly wholesome […]
ref: 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], Emma: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC:
text: They have a good basin of coffee or cocoa for breakfast […]
ref: 1826, George Wood, chapter 7, in The Subaltern Officer: A Narrative, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, page 109:
text: He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: ¶ ‘Please, sir, I want some more.’
ref: 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:
text: 1893, Gilbert Parker, “The March of the White Guard,” in Tavistock Tales, New York: Tait Sons & Co., p. 27,
Gaspé Toujours is drinking a basin of tea, and Jeff Hyde is fitfully dozing by the fire.
text: A steaming basin of coffee or soup revived them greatly, and even having to decide which of these refreshments they would have, and helping themselves to bread, pulled them together a little.
ref: 1915, Sarah Broom Macnaughtan, chapter 7, in A Woman’s Diary of the War, New York: Dutton, published 1916, page 99:
glosses: A shallow bowl used for a single serving of a drink or liquidy food.
examples: text: This shortly brought them to a bewitching spring, whose basin was incrusted with a frostwork of glittering crystals […]
ref: 1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 31, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC:
text: The fountains were plashing musically into marble and alabaster basins.
ref: 1891, Frederic Farrar, chapter 6, in Darkness at Dawn:
text: There was a stone basin of clear but motionless water, and the heavy reddish-and-yellow arches went round the courtyard with warrior-like fatality, their bases in dark shadow.
ref: 1926, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 2, in The Plumed Serpent:
glosses: A depression, natural or artificial, containing water.
examples: text: Devils Lake is where I began my career as a limnologist in 1964, studying the lake’s neotenic salamanders and chironomids, or midge flies. […] The Devils Lake Basin is an endorheic, or closed, basin covering about 9,800 square kilometers in northeastern North Dakota.
ref: 2012 January 23, Douglas Larson, “Runaway Devils Lake”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 23 May 2012, page 46:
topics: geography
natural-sciences
glosses: An area of land from which water drains into a common outlet; drainage basin.
topics: geography
natural-sciences
glosses: A shallow depression in a rock formation, such as an area of down-folded rock that has accumulated a thick layer of sediments, or an area scooped out by water erosion.
Derived terms: Amazon Basin
Badwater Basin
basinal
basin and range topography
basin cut
basinful
basinless
basinlike
basin of attraction
basinward
basinwide
canal basin
catch-basin
catchment basin
Chad Basin
debris basin
detention basin
drainage basin
Foxe basin
handbasin
infiltration basin
interbasin
intrabasin
Judith Basin County
macrobasin
Mediterranean basin
metabasin
model basin
multibasin
oceanic basin
palaeobasin
paleobasin
pudding-basin
pudding basin
pudding basin haircut
receiving basin
recharge basin
retarding basin
retention basin
river basin
sedimentary basin
ship model basin
slop-basin
subbasin
sugar basin
Tarim Basin
tidal basin
washbasin
washhand-basin
Related terms: Basin in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)