Other forms: baskets
A basket is a container made of woven strips — cane, willow, plastic — with an open top and usually a handle. A shopping basket, a picnic basket, a washing basket.
In basketball, the basket is the hoop and net, and to score a basket is to put the ball through it. Online, a basket is what British sites call the place your chosen items wait before you pay, where American sites say cart. Note the fixed phrase put all your eggs in one basket, meaning to risk everything on a single thing, and basket case, which is now informal for somebody or something unable to function, and was originally a great deal grimmer.
1nounbasketAn open container made of woven strips.
“There is a basket of apples by the door.”
2nounhoopIn basketball, the hoop and net, or a score through it.
“She scored the winning basket with four seconds left.”
3nounitemsThe items chosen on a shopping website before paying.
“There are three things still in my basket.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
basket is a container.
Latin bascauda was a British word the Romans borrowed — a rare case of Latin taking a word from the island rather than the other way round. It came back into English through French, so the word has crossed the Channel twice.
Middle English
basket
English, today
basket
From Middle English basket. From Middle English basket, from Anglo-Norman baschet, basket, bascat, from latin bascauda. Displaced native Old English mand.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA