basement

[ beys-muhnt ]
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noun
  1. a story of a building, partly or wholly underground.

  2. (in classical and Renaissance architecture) the portion of a building beneath the principal story, treated as a single compositional unit.

  1. the lowermost portion of a structure.

  2. the substructure of a columnar or arched construction.

Origin of basement

1
First recorded in 1720–30; base1 + -ment

Words Nearby basement

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use basement in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for basement

basement

/ (ˈbeɪsmənt) /


noun
    • a partly or wholly underground storey of a building, esp the one immediately below the main floor: Compare cellar

    • (as modifier): a basement flat

  1. the foundation or substructure of a wall or building

  1. geology a part of the earth's crust formed of hard igneous or metamorphic rock that lies beneath the cover of soft sedimentary rock, sediment, and soil

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012