Basin

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈbeɪsɪn/
• Rhymes: -eɪsÉ™n

Origin

From Middle English basin, from Old French bacin, from Vulgar Latin *baccinum, from Late Latin bacca ("wine jug"), from Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *baski ("bundle") (compare Welsh baich ("load, burden"), Irish bac ("hindrance")).

Full definition of basin

Noun

1. A bowl for washing, often affixed to a wall.
2. (geography) An area of land from which water drains into a specific river.
• 2012-01, Douglas Larson, Runaway Devils Lake, 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.
3. (geography) A rock formation scooped out by water erosion.

Synonyms

• (bowl) sink

Derived terms

• basin of attraction
• catchment basin
• drainage basin
• oceanic basin
• sedimentary basin

Anagrams

• sabin, Sabin