- An open, shallow, usually round container used especially for holding liquids.
- The amount that such a vessel can hold.
- A washbowl; a sink.
- An artificially enclosed area of a river or harbor designed so that the water level remains unaffected by tidal changes.
- A small enclosed or partly enclosed body of water.
- A region drained by a single river system: the Amazon basin.
- Geology.
- A broad tract of land in which the rock strata are tilted toward a common center.
- A large, bowl-shaped depression in the surface of the land or ocean floor.
[Middle English, from Old French bacin, from Vulgar Latin *baccīnum, from *baccus, container, of Celtic origin.]
basinal ba'sin·al adj.basined ba'sined (-sĭnd) adj.






