Webster's English Dictionary

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basin

ba.sin \'ba-s-*n\ \-*nd\ n [ME, fr. OF bacin, fr. LL bacchinon] 1a: an open 
   usu. circular vessel with sloping or curving sides used typical ly for 
   holding water for washing 1b: the quantity contained in a basin  2a: a dock 
   built in a tidal river or harbor  2b: a water area enclosed or partly 
   enclosed  3a: a large or small depression in the surface of the land or in 
   the ocean  floor 3b: the entire tract of country drained by a river and its 
   tributaries  3c: a great depression in the surface of the lithosphere 
   occupied by an oce an 4: a broad area of the earth beneath which the strata 
   dip usu. from the sid es toward the center - ba.sined aj