Link Centre Dictionary

baste

UK/beɪst/ US/ˈbeɪst/ rare archaic slang
verb (3) noun (1)

verb

1.

cover with liquid before cooking

  • “baste a roast”
2.

strike violently and repeatedly

  • “She clobbered the man who tried to attack her”
Synonyms
3.

sew together loosely, with large stitches

  • “baste a hem”
Synonyms

noun

1.

loose temporary stitches

Synonyms

Origin

From the surface, either an indigenous cognate or borrowed from North Germanic; compare: Old Norse bausta, Icelandic beysta, Norwegian Nynorsk bøysta, Swedish bösta, bysta, Danish bøste (“to smack, thresh”), to a Proto-Germanic *baustjaną. Compare derivatives Old Norse bǫstl (“arrow”), Swedish böstel (“racket, pestle”), böste (“crowbar”). Further compare fist, German Faust (“fist”), etc, and Latin fustis (“cudgel”). Might be related to French bâton (“stick”) (formerly baston); English baton comes from bâton; see also French bastonnade (“the act of beating with a stick”).

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Entails

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.