Definitions for basic
ˈbeɪ sɪkba·sic

Princeton's WordNet(3.00 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. BASIC(noun)

   a popular programming language that is relatively easy to learn; an acronym for beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code; no longer in general use

2. basic, staple(adj)

   (usually plural) a necessary commodity for which demand is constant

3. basic(adj)

   pertaining to or constituting a base or basis

   "a basic fact"; "the basic ingredients"; "basic changes in public opinion occur because of changes in priorities"

4. basic, canonic, canonical(adj)

   reduced to the simplest and most significant form possible without loss of generality

   "a basic story line"; "a canonical syllable pattern"

5. basic, introductory(adj)

   serving as a base or starting point

   "a basic course in Russian"; "basic training for raw recruits"; "a set of basic tools"; "an introductory art course"

6. basic(adj)

   of or denoting or of the nature of or containing a base

Wiktionary(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. basic(Noun)

   A necessary commodity, a staple requirement.

   Rice is a basic for many Asian villagers.

2. basic(Noun)

   An elementary building block, e.g. a fundamental piece of knowledge.

   Arithmetic is a basic for the study of mathematics.

3. basic(Noun)

   basic training.

4. basic(Adjective)

   necessary, essential for life or some process.

   Flour is a basic ingredient of bread.

5. basic(Adjective)

   elementary, simple, fundamental, merely functional.

   The Hotel Sparta's accommodation is purely basic.

6. basic(Adjective)

   Of or pertaining to a base; antonym of acidic

7. BASIC(ProperNoun)

   A family of third-generation programming languages (c.1964 on).

   Many programs were written for the Sinclair Spectrum computer in BASIC.

8. Basic(ProperNoun)

   A family of third-generation computer programming languages (c.1964 on).

   Many programs were written for the Sinclair Spectrum computer in BASIC.

Origin: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

Webster Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Basic(adj)

   relating to a base; performing the office of a base in a salt

2. Basic(adj)

   having the base in excess, or the amount of the base atomically greater than that of the acid, or exceeding in proportion that of the related neutral salt

3. Basic(adj)

   apparently alkaline, as certain normal salts which exhibit alkaline reactions with test paper

4. Basic(adj)

   said of crystalline rocks which contain a relatively low percentage of silica, as basalt

Freebase(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. BASIC

   BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use; the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. The original Dartmouth BASIC was designed in 1964 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA to provide computer access to non-science students. At the time, nearly all use of computers required writing custom software, which was something only scientists and mathematicians tended to do. The language and its variants became widespread on microcomputers in the late 1970s and 1980s, when it was typically a standard feature, and often part of the firmware of the machine. The presence of an easy-to-learn language such as BASIC on these early personal computers allowed small business owners to develop their own custom application software, leading to widespread use of these computers in businesses that previously did not have access to computing technology. BASIC remains popular in numerous dialects and new languages influenced by BASIC such as Microsoft Visual Basic. In 2006, 59% of developers for the .NET Framework used Visual Basic .NET as their only programming language.

The New Hacker's Dictionary(5.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. BASIC

   A programming language, originally designed for Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s, which for many years was the leading cause of brain damage in proto-hackers. Edsger W. Dijkstra observed in Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective that “It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.” This is another case (like Pascal) of the cascading lossage that happens when a language deliberately designed as an educational toy gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs (on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer (a) is very painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will make it harder to use more powerful languages well. This wouldn't be so bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end micros in the 1980s. As it is, it probably ruined tens of thousands of potential wizards.[1995: Some languages called “BASIC” aren't quite this nasty any more, having acquired Pascal- and C-like procedures and control structures and shed their line numbers. —ESR]BASIC stands for “Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code”. Earlier versions of this entry claiming this was a later backronym were incorrect.

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'basic' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #900

2. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'basic' in Written Corpus Frequency: #1366

3. Adjectives Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'basic' in Adjectives Frequency: #104

Anagrams for basic »

1. SABIC

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of basic in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of basic in Pythagorean Numerology is: 7

Examples of basic in a Sentence

1. Benjamin Galloway and Douglas Beevers:

   He's aware of the basic nature of the charges.

2. Chuq Von Rospach:

   The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.

3. Guy Thomas:

   The basic operation of FIFA is to run world football.

4. Edward Gregg:

   We do know some very basic things can make a big difference.

5. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee:

   That's the basic premise I think we should all operate under.

Images & Illustrations of basic

Popularity rank by frequency of use