Definitions for basic
ˈbeɪ sɪkba·sic

Princeton's WordNet(2.60 / 5 votes)Rate this definition:

1. BASICnoun

   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, stapleadjective

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

3. basicadjective

   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, canonicaladjective

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

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

5. basic, introductoryadjective

   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. basicadjective

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

Wiktionary(4.33 / 3 votes)Rate this definition:

1. basicnoun

   A necessary commodity, a staple requirement.

   Rice is a basic for many Asian villagers.

   Etymology: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

2. basicnoun

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

   Arithmetic is a basic for the study of mathematics.

   Etymology: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

3. basicnoun

   basic training.

   Etymology: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

4. basicadjective

   necessary, essential for life or some process.

   Flour is a basic ingredient of bread.

   Etymology: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

5. basicadjective

   elementary, simple, fundamental, merely functional.

   The Hotel Sparta's accommodation is purely basic.

   Etymology: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

6. basicadjective

   Of or pertaining to a base; antonym of acidic

   Etymology: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

7. BASICnoun

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

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

   Etymology: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

8. Basicnoun

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

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

   Etymology: Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

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

1. Basicadjective

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

2. Basicadjective

   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. Basicadjective

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

4. Basicadjective

   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.

Matched Categories

1. • Chemistry
   • Programming Language

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

How to pronounce basic?

1. Alex

   US English

   David

   US English

   Mark

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Libby

   British

   Mia

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Hayley

   Australian

   Natasha

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

   Priya

   Indian

   Neerja

   Indian

   Zira

   US English

   Oliver

   British

   Wendy

   British

   Fred

   US English

   Tessa

   South African

How to say basic in sign language?

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. Amnesty International:

   The flogging of Raif Badawi is a vicious act of cruelty which is prohibited under international law, by ignoring international calls to cancel the flogging Saudi Arabia's authorities have demonstrated an abhorrent disregard for the most basic human rights principles.

2. Lata Bandgar:

   A piece of land to work on and a home to live in are their basic rights - it's tied to their identity, livelihood and status in the community. Without it they are nothing.

3. Hillary Clinton:

   It will take all of us working together to knock down these barriers to stand for the basic proposition that yes we are all created equal.

4. Robin Maril:

   The idea that you have insurance and you're still being denied basic care is outrageous.

5. Thomas Ristenpart:

   Preventing entire populations from getting access to basic information would be a human-rights catastrophe, particularly for areas of the world that are already war-torn.

Images & Illustrations of basic

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