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Etymology and origin of the English word bast

Pronunciation

  • UK: /bɑːst/[1]
  • US: /bæst/[1]

bast1 plant fibre

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
Corpus Glossary
Inherited from
Old English bæst via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *bastaz

Etymology

The word for the plant fibre is inherited from Middle English bast,[2][3] inherited from Old English bæst (“inner bark of a tree, of which ropes were made”),[4][5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *bastaz.[6][7] It is cognate with Middle Dutch bast, Old Saxon bast, Old High German bast, Old Norse bast and German Bast, and with a different ablaut grade Middle High German buost (“rope or tie made of bast”).[8][9] Its further origin is unknown or disputed.[8][7][6][10] The OED reports attempts to derive it from the same Germanic base as bare or besom.[8] Another proposal is the Indo-European base of Latin fascis (“bundle”), which would imply an original sense "a thing that binds" but leaves the -t- unexplained.[8] Klein thinks the Latin link probable,[11] and Kroonen doubts it.[9] Orel instead connects the word with a root meaning "to shine".[12] A verb from the Germanic base passed into Romance, where it lost its connection with bark;[8] Klein traces Old French bastir (“to build”) to Frankish *bastjan (“to sew or bind with bast”), and connects baste, bastille and bastion with it.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fibrous inner bark of a tree, especially the lime: the OED's first record is the early Old English Corpus Glossary,[8] and Bosworth–Toller cites a gloss that pairs it with the word for the lime tree.[4]

Semantic evolution

The word is sparsely recorded before the first half of the 14th century, but Norfolk place names of 1086 and a Latin bastum of the 13th century, taken from English in British sources, imply that it was in wider use.[8] It began as the inner bark of the linden or lime,[5][7][4] and in Middle English bast tre meant the tree itself.[2] It then widened to the fibre of other plants such as hemp, flax and jute.[13][14] From 1357–8 it could also mean an article made of the fibre, such as a rope or mat, a use that became rare and chiefly regional after Middle English.[8] In the dialects of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire it meant the inner bark of the lime, and in Lincolnshire also the fibre of hemp or flax.[15] The botanical sense, the phloem or vascular tissue of a plant, appears in an 1875 translation of Sachs,[8] and the OED compares German usage of 1858 or earlier.[8] The form bass is a variant of the same word.[16][17][18]

Timeline

  • Old English – the inner bark of a tree, used for rope.[8][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the fibre to before the 12th century.[19]
  • 1086 – in Norfolk place names, as Bastuwic, now Bastwick.[8]
  • 1296 – corde de bast, cordage of bast, in an account for a Newcastle galley.[2]
  • 1357–8 – a rope, mat or similar article made of bast.[8]
  • 1875 – in plant physiology, vascular tissue, specifically the phloem.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Strong woody fibre obtained from the phloem of plants such as jute, hemp, flax and lime, used for making rope and matting: The market stall was roofed with mats of bast.[14][19][10]
  2. (botany) The phloem or vascular tissue of a plant.[14][19][6][10]

Word family

  • basten

bast2 illegitimacy

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1325 Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester
Borrowed from
Old French bast

Etymology

The word for illegitimacy of birth is borrowed from Old French bast (“illegitimacy of birth”),[8][2][3] recorded in French from the mid 13th century, frequently in de bast (“illegitimate”).[8] That is probably a back-formation from bastart, the source of bastard.[8] Many early Romance scholars took it as the source of bastart and as a specific use of its homonym meaning "packsaddle", with an allusion to casual encounters between muleteers and serving girls at inns; the OED notes that recent scholarship questions this and treats the homonyms as unrelated.[8] The Middle English Dictionary still compares the packsaddle word.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Illegitimacy of birth, in phrases meaning "born out of wedlock": about 1325, in the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester.[8][2] The personal name Lucus le Bast (1225) is older, but it is unclear whether it shows the English adjective.[8]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed close to its French use, chiefly in adverbial phrases with a, in, of and on,[8][2] and in the adjective of bast son.[8][2] Both died out in the 16th century, the noun's last OED record being of 1548 and the adjective's of 1560.[8]

Timeline

  • c. 1325 – noun, illegitimacy of birth.[8][2]
  • c. 1330 – adjective, illegitimate, in Arthour and Merlin.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (obsolete, 1325–1548) Illegitimacy of birth, chiefly in phrases such as born a bast.[8][2]

Adjective

  1. (obsolete, 1330–1560) Born out of wedlock; illegitimate, as in bast son.[8][2]

Usage notes

The OED enters two more words of this spelling.[8] One, in Persian-speaking contexts, means sanctuary or asylum; it is a borrowing from Persian recorded from 1856, of uncertain further etymology.[8] The other, a freshwater fish, especially the perch (1676–1759), is a variant of bass.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  12. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  13. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  17. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  18. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  19. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster

Related etymologies

  • shame · also from Old English
  • roof · also from Old English
  • ban · also from Old English
  • lock · also from Old English
  • wise · also from Old English
  • trend · also from Old English
  • tie · also from Old English
  • nose · also from Old English
Cite this entry

“Bast.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/bast. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·