bass
Pluralbasses (some meanings), bass (some meanings)
Pluralbasses (some meanings), bass (some meanings)
- 1The range of low-pitched tones in sound or music.
The recording needed more bass to fill out the low end.
Heavy bass made the floor vibrate at the concert.
Oppositetreble
- 2Low in pitch or frequency, as a sound, voice, or instrument.
A bass drum anchors the rhythm section beneath the snares.
His bass voice carried across the crowded auditorium.
Note
The musical word looks like base because it is base, respelled: Italian basso, "low", drew the spelling toward its double s. It often sits beside its near-synonyms, as in a deep, bass, rumbling voice, where deep gives the depth and bass gives the musical register. It even compares regularly, basser and bassest, when one low voice is set against another.
- 3An instrument that plays in the low range, especially a double bass, bass guitar, electric bass, or bass synthesizer.
The bass holds down the groove while the guitar takes a solo.
A four-string bass is common in funk and reggae.
Note
A musician's catch-all names a job, not a build: whichever instrument covers the low range is the bass. That may be an upright double bass, a bass guitar, an electric bass or a bass synthesizer. When the difference matters, the full name does the work. Said alone, the word assumes the listener already knows which kind of instrument the group uses.
- 4BAS/bæs/Any of various marine or freshwater fish resembling the perch, belonging to the order Perciformes.
Anglers prize striped bass for the fight it puts up.
The bass darted into the reeds when a shadow crossed the water.
Note
The fish has a different word that only shares the musical spelling. It comes from Old English bærs, "perch", from a Germanic name meaning "prickly", and is related to Dutch baars and German Barsch. It works as a count noun for the living fish, as in a bass in the reeds, and as a mass noun for the catch or the meal, as in a supper of bass.
- 5The section of a musical group that produces the lowest-pitched sound, below the baritone and tenor.
The bass anchors the harmony beneath the tenors and baritones.
Our conductor asked the bass to sing more softly.
- 6A person who sings in the lowest vocal range.
The bass held the final note long after the others stopped.
She trained for years to sing as a bass in opera.
- 7The clef sign showing that the written notes fall below middle C, also called the bass clef.
Tuba parts are written in the bass to match the instrument's low range.
She struggled to read the bass at first.
Oppositetreble
Note
Musicians clip the clef to its first word. A part is written in the bass, and a score has its treble and bass, two signs read as a pair. The full form, bass clef, is the safer choice when the reader might take the word for the instrument. The short form relies on a musical setting to make the meaning clear.
- 8To give out a sound in a deep, low tone.
Note
Shakespeare's thunder in The Tempest is the place to hear it. That "deep and dreadful organ-pipe" pronounced Prosper's name and "did base my trespass," sounding out the speaker's wrong in its lowest voice. In that line the verb takes an object and keeps the older spelling base, the form behind the musical adjective. Its modern forms are basses, bassing and bassed.
- 9BAS/bæs/Fibrous material forming the inner bark of the linden, or lime, tree, used to make mats.
Cordage twisted from bass held the bundles together.
They soaked the bass before weaving it into mats.
Similarbast
Note
Here the word is bast under another spelling. It is a corruption of bast, the usual name for fibrous inner bark, and it has no connection with the voice or the fish. Linden, also called lime, supplied the classic material. When writing for general readers, bast is the clearer choice; bass in this sense is easy to misread.
- 10BAS/bæs/An object made from bast or other plant fibers, such as a hassock, basket, or thick mat.
The hassock was stuffed and covered with bass.
Villagers wove bass into baskets and thick floor mats.
Note
In Wakefield the woven object was what the word meant: William Stott Banks's A List of Provincial Words in use at Wakefield in Yorkshire (1865) glosses it simply as "a door mat". J L Carr's A Month in the Country (1980) has a straw fish-bass, a handled bag that gives way in the rain. Compounds of this kind name what the woven thing carries.
- 11BAS/bæs/Similar fiber obtained from other plants, especially palm trees.
Craftsmen braided bass from palm fronds into sturdy cord.
Much of the matting was made from palm bass.
Similarbast
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Origins
A respelling of "base," influenced by the Italian "basso" ("low").
From Middle English "bace," an alteration of "bars," from Old English "bærs" ("a fish, perch"), going back through Proto-Germanic "*barsaz" ("perch," literally "prickly") to Proto-Indo-European "*bʰórsos" ("prickle, thorn, scale"). It is related to Dutch "baars" and German "Barsch" ("perch").
A corruption of "bast."