basket
Americannoun
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baskets
plural
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a container made of twigs, rushes, thin strips of wood, or other flexible material woven together.
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a container made of pieces of thin veneer, used for packing berries, vegetables, etc.
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the amount contained in a basket; a basketful.
to pick a basket of apples.
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anything like a basket in shape or use.
He never empties my wastepaper basket.
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any group of things or different things grouped as a unit; a package; package deal.
You can't buy the single stock; you have to take the basket—all companies, stocks and bonds.
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the car or gondola suspended beneath a balloon, as for carrying passengers or scientific instruments into the atmosphere.
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Basketball.
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an open net suspended from a metal rim attached to the backboard and through which the ball must pass in order for a player to score points.
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a score, counting two for a field goal and one for a free throw.
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Also called snow ring. Skiing. a ring strapped to the base of a ski pole to limit penetration of the pole in the snow.
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Slang: Vulgar. the male genitals, especially when outlined by a tight-fitting garment.
noun
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a container made of interwoven strips of pliable materials, such as cane, straw, thin wood, or plastic, and often carried by means of a handle or handles
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Also called: basketful. the amount a basket will hold
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something resembling such a container in appearance or function, such as the structure suspended from a balloon
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basketball
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an open horizontal metal hoop fixed to the backboard, through which a player must throw the ball to score points
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a point or points scored in this way
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a group or collection of similar of related things
a basket of currencies
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the list of items an internet shopper chooses to buy at one time from a website
add these items to your basket
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of basket
1250–1300; Middle English basket ( te ) < early Romance *baskauta (> French dialect bâchot, bachou wooden or interwoven vessel, Old High German baskiza box) < Latin bascauda basin, perhaps < British Celtic
Explanation
A basket is a container made of woven straw or other material. You might keep your dirty clothes in a plastic laundry basket. There are many different types of baskets, from the shopping basket you carry in a grocery store to the basket you aim for when you throw a basketball. There are figurative baskets, too, like the basket you add items to when you're shopping online. What's known about the origin of basket is that it comes from the Anglo-French bascat — beyond that, it's a mystery.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Having all your eggs in one basket is always a dangerous move so having more experts looking after it is really the right way to go," he said.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
She would climb into the basket on her own, meowing, purring and rolling on her back.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
"We should not be putting all our eggs in one basket in these dangerous times," says renewable energy expert Kushal Gurung, who founded the clean tech firm WindPower Nepal.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
This year the basket of negative-beta stocks has delivered results in line with the tech-charged S&P 500.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 2, 2026
A faint hum came from the nests in the basket.
From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff
Since the markets are so unpredictable, it makes sense to divide your eggs among many baskets rather than bet on just one.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026
Ushers stood at all the exits of Great Festival Hall with baskets for donations for Venezuela.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
By then, the baskets had been picked over.
From Salon ● Aug. 4, 2026
Divers’ primary tool was a vacuum-like system called a dredge, which sucked up sediment from inside the wreck and deposited it into baskets on the sea floor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
The group that had walked in before them were in the backyard filling up their baskets with the lemons from a tall, bushy tree.
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
