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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

basic.

Necessary, essential for life or some process.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈbeɪsɪk/

  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. Unremarkable or uninteresting; boring; uncool.

    informal
Where this word 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.

noun/ˈbeɪsɪk/

  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.
    I know the basics of sailing and would love to learn more.

  3. Basic training.

    The drill sergeants gave him hell in basic.
Where this word 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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.