Other forms: basins
In geography, a basin is the bowl of land drained by one river system. The Amazon basin, a drainage basin, the whole basin.
Everything that falls in a basin runs eventually into the same river, which is why flood management has to be planned across a whole one. Catchment is the near-synonym. A basin is also a washbasin, and in cooking a bowl: a pudding basin. Note the Mediterranean basin, which is a sea rather than a river system; and that a basin has a watershed round its edge separating it from the next one.
1nounbasinThe bowl of land drained by one river system.
“The Amazon basin contains the largest rainforest in the world.”
2nounwashingA bowl for washing or cooking.
“She filled a basin with warm soapy water and washed the dishes.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
basin is a bowl or drained area.
Vulgar Latin baccinum meant a wide bowl. The geographic sense is a metaphor from the shape, and the same word gives the kitchen bowl, the bathroom fitting and the Amazon.
Middle English
basyn
English, today
basin
From Middle English basyn. From Middle English basyn, from Old French bacin, from Vulgar Latin baccinum (“wide bowl”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA