Jump to:

• Basic English
  Basic English

  noun

  a simplified form of English restricted to an 850-word vocabulary and a few rules of grammar, intended especially as an international auxiliary language and for use in teaching English as a foreign language: devised by Charles Kay Ogden.
• basic English
  basic English

  noun

  a simplified form of English, proposed by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, containing a vocabulary of approximately 850 of the commonest English words, intended as an international language

Basic English

American  

noun

1. a simplified form of English restricted to an 850-word vocabulary and a few rules of grammar, intended especially as an international auxiliary language and for use in teaching English as a foreign language: devised by Charles Kay Ogden.

---

basic English British  

noun

1. a simplified form of English, proposed by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, containing a vocabulary of approximately 850 of the commonest English words, intended as an international language

---

Etymology

Origin of Basic English

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

Arthur Brisbane, journalism's Basic English eminence, then on the New York World, put Harriet to work as a columnist.

From Time Magazine Archive

Churchill was furious because the name wasn't in Basic English, but he turned up just the same.

From Time Magazine Archive

Translation into Basic English sometimes results in a stilted foreignness.

From Time Magazine Archive

New Bible translations seem to be born every year: there are Bibles in Basic English, in meter, in I-see-the-cat prose for kindergartens, in Reader's Digest-like condensations.

From Time Magazine Archive

You say the letter accompanying the first deposit, the one in Basic English, was apparently taken away by Kettle-Belly Sam Bonney.

From Lone Star Planet by Piper, H. Beam