Literary notes about Basin (AI summary)
The term “basin” has been employed in literature with a rich variety of connotations and images. In some contexts it denotes a humble household utensil—a receptacle for water, milk, or broth—in intimate domestic scenes or ritual practices, such as washing oneself or preparing a meal ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5]). In other passages, it represents a natural geographic depression that frames vast landscapes, suggesting both beauty and isolation ([6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]). Authors have also used the word metaphorically, imbuing it with symbolic weight, whether that be an emblem of charity and communal sharing ([13]) or even a container for more dramatic elements like blood or quicksilver ([14], [15], [16]). This range of usage underlines how “basin” straddles the mundane and the mythic, serving as both a practical object and a versatile literary symbol ([4], [17]).
- She placed the little fish in a golden basin of water and took it to her room, where she cared for it very tenderly.
— from Filipino Popular Tales - I sat down to my brown loaf, my egg, and my rasher of bacon, with a basin of milk besides, and made a most delicious meal.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - She peeped out at him two or three times as she stood washing herself in the little basin between the windows.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin - After that, he putteth water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - 'Rose, bring me the basin and the towels, and make the room look tidy.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - The sheep-washing pool was a perfectly circular basin of brickwork in the meadows, full of the clearest water.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - One tunnel only, fourteen thousand feet in length, was pierced in order to arrive at the great basin.
— from Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne - It stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Rio do Ouro or River of Gold is a basin, extending about 20 miles inland and four miles wide at its mouth.
— from A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama 1497-1499 - Then we drive across a third basin, large and flat, with the scattered hills getting lower and seemingly worn by the action of weather.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - Evidently the southern basin, frozen during the six winter months, was absolutely inaccessible.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne - In the late afternoon in the hot summers when the road and the fields are covered with dust, a smoky haze lies over the great flat basin of land.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson - The contributions in the alms-basin ( batil ) are then divided among the entire company as alms ( sĕdĕkah ).
— from Malay Magic by Walter William Skeat - I must dip my hand again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin—the latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker - In the midst of the hall was a basin of quicksilver; at either side were eight doors set in ivory and ebony, and adorned with precious stones.
— from The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole - It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks's Basin; and I had no other guide to Chinks's Basin than the Old Green Copper Rope-walk.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
