basing

Pluralbasings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of base.

   The engineers are basing the bridge design on tested models.

   Basing your budget on guesses rarely works out well.

   Note

   This one spelling does several jobs. It is the progressive participle (they are basing the design on tests) and the gerund (basing a budget on guesses rarely works). It also spells the noun for housing equipment, which takes a plural, basings. As a verb it usually runs in the frame basing X on Y, where Y is the foundation. The final e of base drops before -ing.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The placing of something in a base so that it is stored or housed there.

   The basing of fuel reserves closer to the front improved response times.

   Officials debated the basing of spare equipment at the coastal site.

   Similarstationing, storage, positioning, housing

   Note

   Planners use it for where equipment is kept between uses. Strategic-arms writing applies it to missiles: Barbara Goss Levi and Mark Sakitt (1989) describe deep underground basing, with missiles buried in mountainside tunnels to ride out a nuclear attack. Counted, it takes a plural. The Interstate Commerce Commission's Reports of 1937 prorate costs by arrivals, departures and basings of equipment.

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