basin

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An open, shallow, usually round container used especially for holding liquids.
2. n. The amount that such a vessel can hold.
3. n. A washbowl; a sink.
4. n. An artificially enclosed area of a river or harbor designed so that the water level remains unaffected by tidal changes.
5. n. A small enclosed or partly enclosed body of water.
6. n. A region drained by a single river system: the Amazon basin.
7. n. Geology A broad tract of land in which the rock strata are tilted toward a common center.
8. n. Geology A large, bowl-shaped depression in the surface of the land or ocean floor.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A circular dish or vessel of greater width than depth, contracting toward the bottom, and used chiefly to hold water or other liquid, especially for washing, but also for various other purposes.
2. n. As much as a basin will hold; a basinful.
3. n. In the arts and manufacturing: In hat-making, a vessel filled with boiling water in which the loose mat of felted fur formed on the cone for a hat-body is dipped in the process of basining (see basin, v. t.), in order to shrink it to the proper size. Also called sizing-kettle.
4. n. A concave piece of metal on which glass-grinders form their convex glasses.
5. n. The scale or scale-dish of a balance when concave.
6. n. A pair of hollow metal dishes clashed together like cymbals to produce sound: formerly beaten when infamous persons were exposed in a cart as a punishment.
7. n. A basin-shaped vessel hung by chains from the roof of a church, with a pricket in the middle for the serges. See cerge. When of silver, such vessels usually had a brass or latten basin within to catch the wax-droppings.
8. n. The hollow part of a plate or dish.
9. n. A natural or artificial reservoir for water. A pond; a bay; a dock for ships.
10. n. In geography: The area drained by a river. The term is ordinarily used only when speaking of a large river, and then includes the entire area drained by the main stream and its tributaries. The line separating two river-systems from each other is the watershed. A closed basin is an area which has no outlet to the sea. In the United States, the Great Basin is that portion of the Cordilleran region which has no such outlet, comprising an area of about 225,000 square miles.
11. n. A basin-shaped depression or hollow; a circular or oval valley.
12. n. In geology, an area over which the stratified formations are so disposed as to show that they were deposited in succession within a basin-shaped depression of the original surface, thus giving rise to a series of beds which have a general dip toward a common center, especially near the edges of the area. In some instances the basin structure is very marked, as in the case of the Forest of Dean and Inde coal-fields. Sometimes, however, a mere synclinal depression of the strata is called a basin; and this is especially the case in the Appalachian coal-field, where any smaller area, separated by erosion from the main body of the coal-bearing strata, may be called a basin. The geological basins of London and Paris are especially known and interesting. The rocks of both are chiefly Lower Tertiary, or Eocene and Oligocene, the name sometimes given to that part of the series which is intermediate in age between Eocene and Miocene. The important member of the London basin—the “London clay”—is absent from the Paris basin. The Middle Eocene is represented in the Paris basin by an extremely fossiliferous rock, the Calcaire grossier (which see). The Tertiary of the Paris basin, like that of the London basin, rests on a thick mass of white chalk. This has been completely bored through at various points, for the purpose of obtaining water, which rises above the surface in large quantities at the wells of Grenelle and Passy, and at other points.
13. n. In anatomy: The third ventricle of the brain.
14. n. The pelvis.
15. n. In entomology, a large concavity in a surface; specifically, a concave portion of the metathoracic segment over the base of the abdomen. The basin of the antenna is a concavity in which the antenna is inserted, often limited on the inner side by a carina, as in the ants.
16. n. Formerly also spelled bason.
17. In hat-making, to harden or shrink to the proper size, as a hat-body in the process of felting, by dipping in the basin of hot water, wrapping in the basining-cloth (which see), and rolling on a table. Also spelled bason.
18. n. In horticulture, the depression at the apex of pomaceous fruits, as apples and pears. The calyx or eye sits in the basin. The depression at the opposite end is known as the cavity.
19. n. An intermediate basin between a wet dock and the sea or tidal portion of a river or harbor. This intermediate basin is operated in the same manner as an ordinary lock, and differs from it only in being larger and thus in locking in or out several vessels at a time.

Wiktionary

1. n. A bowl for washing, often affixed to a wall.
2. n. geography An area of land from which water drains into a specific river.
3. n. geography A rock formation scooped out by water erosion.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A hollow vessel or dish, to hold water for washing, and for various other uses.
2. n. The quantity contained in a basin.
3. n. A hollow vessel, of various forms and materials, used in the arts or manufactures, as that used by glass grinders for forming concave glasses, by hatters for molding a hat into shape, etc.
4. n. A hollow place containing water, as a pond, a dock for ships, a little bay.
5. n. A circular or oval valley, or depression of the surface of the ground, the lowest part of which is generally occupied by a lake, or traversed by a river.
6. n. The entire tract of country drained by a river, or sloping towards a sea or lake.
7. n. (Geol.) An isolated or circumscribed formation, particularly where the strata dip inward, on all sides, toward a center; -- especially applied to the coal formations, called coal basins or coal fields.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a natural depression in the surface of the land often with a lake at the bottom of it
2. n. a bathroom sink that is permanently installed and connected to a water supply and drainpipe; where you can wash your hands and face
3. n. the entire geographical area drained by a river and its tributaries; an area characterized by all runoff being conveyed to the same outlet
4. n. a bowl-shaped vessel; usually used for holding food or liquids
5. n. the quantity that a basin will hold