# basement

Pronunciation: say "BAYS-muhnt" /ˈbeɪsmənt/

## Noun

1. A floor of a building that sits wholly or partly below ground level.
   - Simple: A room or floor in a building that is below the ground.
   - _The basement houses the boiler and the electrical panels._
   - _Contractors waterproofed the basement walls before finishing the lower level._
2. The bottom position in a sports conference's standings, occupied by the worst-performing team. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: The lowest place in a sports league's rankings, where the worst team sits.
   - _After ten straight losses, the franchise sank to the basement of the Eastern Conference._
   - _Climbing out of the basement will take more than one winning streak._
3. A mass of igneous or metamorphic rock that underlies and supports a covering platform of sedimentary rock.
   - Simple: A layer of hard, old rock that lies under the softer rock nearer the surface.
   - _Geologists mapped the basement beneath thousands of feet of sediment._
   - _The continent's basement is exposed where erosion has stripped away the overlying rock._
4. Ellipsis of semi-basement: a floor lying mostly, though not wholly, below ground level. — Ellipsis of semi-basement, a floor mostly below grade
   - Simple: Short form of semi-basement. It means a floor that is mostly, but not fully, below the ground.
   - _The shop occupies a basement whose upper windows rise just above the sidewalk._
   - _Light floods the basement because half its height stands above grade._

## Origin

Formed from "base" combined with the suffix "-ment."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/basement (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).