basic

noun

A necessary commodity, a staple requirement.

An elementary building block, e.g. a fundamental piece of knowledge.

(military) Basic training.

Any of a family of third-generation programming languages.

A family of third-generation computer programming languages (c.1964 on).

(attributive) Initialism of Brazil, South Africa, India and China. [A large Portuguese-speaking country in South America. Official name: Federative Republic of Brazil. Capital: Brasília.]

Initialism of British American Security Information Council.

adjective

Elementary, simple, fundamental, merely functional.

Necessary, essential for life or some process.

(informal) Unremarkable or uninteresting; boring; uncool.

(chemistry) Of or pertaining to a base; having a pH greater than 7.

Roots

baineinbas- · Greek · to step, go, walk

Synonyms for basic

fundamentaladj rudimentaryadj foundational elementaryadj primaladj elementaladj underlyingadj simpleadj primordialadj basaladj

Synonyms & related words for basic

Find synonyms, related words, and the definition of basic — including fundamental, rudimentary, foundational, elementary, primal, elemental. Dendril is a free visual thesaurus that shows them on an interactive map where stronger matches sit closer to the center — no signup, no ads.

Words related to basic

Explore words related to basic — words associated with it, words that go with it, and its nearest matches in meaning. Related words include nonbasic, introductory, essentials, rudiments, tetrabasic, elementariness, oversimple, basicity. Click any word to make it the center of the map and keep exploring the web of connections.

Synonyms for basic

Common synonyms for basic include fundamental, rudimentary, foundational, elementary, primal, elemental, underlying, simple — words that share a close meaning. Hover or tap any word on the map for its definition and part of speech.

Where does basic come from?

The word basic breaks down into one root of Greek origin: the root bas-, from Greek bainein (“to step, go, walk”). Explore each root to see other English words built from the same source.