English
basset
Basset comes from Italian bassetta ‘an early card game that used only low-value…’, from basso ‘short (in height)’, and ultimately from Late Latin bassus.
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEbassus‘thick, fat, stumpy, short, low, base’
- Italianc. 1300–presentbasso‘short (in height)’
- Italian, derivedc. 1300–presentbassetto‘low’
- Italian, derivedc. 1300–presentbassetta‘an early card game that used only low-value cards’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentbassette
- Englishearliest quotation 1707basset
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEbassus‘thick, fat, stumpy, short, low, base’
- Italianc. 1300–presentbasso‘short (in height)’
- Italian, derivedc. 1300–presentbassetto‘low’
- Italian, derivedc. 1300–presentbassetta‘an early card game that used only low-value cards’
- Frenchc. 1600–presentbassette
- Englishearliest quotation 1707basset
Earliest quotation: 1707, Nicholas Rowe: “Some dress, some dance, some play, not to forget…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- ‘step’
come, coming, event, revenue, convention, adventure, avenue, venue, inventory, cum, convenience, diabetes, advent, intervene, inventor, invent, souvenir, provenance, pug, convene, contravention, revenant, circumvention, contravene, quim, 52 more
through Proto-Hellenic *gʷə́tis ‘step’
through Ancient Greek βάσις ‘stepping, step’
through Late Latin bassus ‘thick, fat, stumpy, short, low, base’
through Italian basso ‘short (in height)’
Today it means
noun The edge of a geological stratum at the surface of the ground; the outcrop.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Late Latin bassus / basset