Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The state or condition of being base or low in scale; meanness of grade; lowliness, as of birth or station.
- noun That which is base or low; anything of an ignoble grade or quality; meanness, as of relation or employment.
- noun Illegitimacy of birth; bastardy.
- noun The state or quality of being morally mean or vile; vileness; worthlessness.
- noun Of metals: Liability to rust: opposed to nobleness.
- noun Inferior or debased quality, the result of having been alloyed with a cheaper metal; spuriousness.
- noun Deepness of sound.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The quality or condition of being base; degradation; vileness.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The quality or condition of being
base . - noun The quality of being
unworthy to hold virtues or value.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun unworthiness by virtue of lacking higher values
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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III. i.14 (63,3) [For all the accommodations, that thou bear'st Are nurs'd by baseness] Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by _baseness_ is meant _self-love_ here assigned as the motive of all human actions.
Notes to Shakespeare — Volume 01: Comedies Samuel Johnson 1746
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Marechale (de Mirepoix) had been extremely severe upon her, for what they called the baseness of her conduct, with regard to Madame de Pompadour.
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Marechale (de Mirepoix) had been extremely severe upon her, for what they called the baseness of her conduct, with regard to Madame de Pompadour.
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Marechale (de Mirepoix) had been extremely severe upon her, for what they called the baseness of her conduct, with regard to Madame de Pompadour.
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To acquire the friendship of their emirs, the two factions vied with each other in baseness and profusion: the dexterity of Cantacuzene obtained the preference: but the succor and victory were dearly purchased by the marriage of his daughter with an infidel, the captivity of many thousand Christians, and the passage of the Ottomans into Europe, the last and fatal stroke in the fall of the Roman empire.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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-- that comes from having accepted his own baseness from the very beginning.
Anis Shivani: Why American Reviewers Disliked Ian McEwan's "Solar": And What That Says About the Cultural Establishment Anis Shivani 2010
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-- that comes from having accepted his own baseness from the very beginning.
Anis Shivani: Why American Reviewers Disliked Ian McEwan's "Solar": And What That Says About the Cultural Establishment Anis Shivani 2010
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-- that comes from having accepted his own baseness from the very beginning.
Anis Shivani: Why American Reviewers Disliked Ian McEwan's "Solar": And What That Says About the Cultural Establishment Anis Shivani 2010
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Yes in vain might we search our vocabulary and be disappointed still in finding language that would express in proper terms the baseness of this principle, that would describe the polluted heart of him or hear who could thus unfeelingly and without a fear reduce inch by inch an innocent being to the lowest grades of degradation.
Letter from Mary Houston to Young John Allen,September 14, 1855 2008
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He had not, however, such rivals as mine; it is true, their baseness is my security.
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