Join free

BASIC

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

basic¹

  • /ˈbeɪsɪk/

Sounds like BASIC · Rhymes with -eɪsɪk

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *gʷem-

Proto-Indo-European *-tis

Proto-Indo-European *gʷémtis

Proto-Hellenic *gʷə́tis

Ancient Greek βᾰ́σῐς (bắsĭs)bor.

Latin basis

Old French basebor.

Middle English base

English base

Proto-Indo-European *-ikos

Proto-Italic *-ikos

Latin -icuslbor.

Old French -iquebor.

Middle English -ik

English -ic

English basic

From base + -ic.

adjective more basic · most basic

  1. Necessary, essential for life or some process. Flour is a basic ingredient of bread.
  2. Elementary, simple, fundamental, merely functional. The Hotel Sparta’s accommodation is very basic.
  3. Of or pertaining to a base; having a pH greater than 7.
  4. informal Unremarkable or uninteresting; boring; uncool. I'm not saying people are jealous of Hathaway because she is so perfect. Yes, she does have it all — husband, healthy career, good looks. But she doesn't do anything in an "awesome" way. She's basic.

noun basics

  1. A necessary commodity, a staple requirement. Rice is a basic for many Asian villagers.
  2. An elementary building block, e.g. a fundamental piece of knowledge. Arithmetic is a basic for the study of mathematics.
  3. Basic training. The drill sergeants gave him hell in basic.

BASIC²

  • /ˈbeɪsɪk/

Sounds like basic · Rhymes with -eɪsɪk

Where it comes from

Acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, but designed to spell out basic (i.e. simplistic). First use appears c. 1964 in the BASIC Instruction Manual.

proper noun BASICs · Basic

  1. Any of a family of third-generation programming languages. Many programs were written for the Sinclair Spectrum computer in BASIC.

BASIC³

  • /ˈbeɪsɪk/

Sounds like basic · Rhymes with -eɪsɪk

proper noun

  1. abbreviation, attributive, initialism Initialism of Brazil, South Africa, India and China.Brazil

BASIC⁴

  • /ˈbeɪsɪk/

Sounds like basic · Rhymes with -eɪsɪk

proper noun

  1. abbreviation, initialism Initialism of British American Security Information Council.British American Security Information Council

Basic⁵

Where it comes from

An initialism of Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

proper noun BASIC

  1. A family of third-generation computer programming languages (c.1964 on). Many programs were written for the Sinclair Spectrum computer in BASIC.

Talk about this word