Forms: 6 (pa. pple.) baste, basit, (pa. t.) baist; 6–7 bast, 6– baste. [Of uncertain origin, not known before 16th c.; the early instances being all in pa. t. or pa. pple. basit, baste, baist, might be from a present bas, base, to be compared with Sw. basa ‘to baste, whip, beat, flog.’ With baste, if it was the original form, cf. Icel. beysta, beyrsta ‘to bruise, thrash, flog,’ Sw. bösta ‘to thump’; but the vowels do not agree with the Eng. Possibly, after all, a figurative use of the preceding: cf. anoint in sense of thrash.]
trans. To beat soundly, thrash, cudgel.
1533. Bellenden, Livy, III. (1822), 223. He departit weil basit, and defuleyeit of his clething.
a. 1550[?]. Rob. Hood (Ritson), iii. 102. He paid good Robin back and side, And baist him up and down, Ibid., 364. Their bones were baste so sore.
1596. Colse, Penelope (1880), 172. Would not sticke to baste your bones.
1660. Pepys, Diary, 1 Dec. I took a broom, and basted her, till she cried extremely.
1704. Steele, Lying Louer, IV. ii. 43. I’ll have the Rascal well basted for his insolence.
1801. Strutt, Sports & Past., IV. iv. § 8. Baste the bear [a kind of game].
1847. Barham, Ingol. Leg. (1877), 13. Would now and then seize … A stick … And baste her lord and master most confoundedly.
fig. 1797. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Livery Lond., Wks. 1812, III. 443. Basted by saucy Verse and Prose … Like Bears by ruffian Bull-dogs baited.
