also 6 baest, 6–7 bast. [a. OF. bastir (mod. bâtir), cogn. with Sp. bastear, embastar, It. imbastire ‘to stuffe, to quilt … to baste as taylers doe’ (Florio); separated by Littré and others from bâtir to build, with which it is identical in form, and referred to OHG. bestan to patch, MHG. besten to lace, tie, f. bast BAST sb.1; but Diez thinks it sufficiently accounted for by ‘put together, join,’ dialectal senses of It. and Romanic bastire to build, construct.]
trans. To sew together loosely: hence † a. To stitch through (the folds of a doublet, contents of a bag or cushion), so as to keep them in place, to quilt (obs.); b. in mod. use, To sew or ‘tack’ together with long loose stitches the parts of (a piece of work), in order to hold them in place for the time. c. transf. or fig.
a. c. 1440. Rom. Rose, 104. With a threde bastyng my slevis.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 26. Bastyn clothys, subsuo, sutulo.
1530. Palsgr., 442. This dublet was not well basted at the first, and that maketh it to wrinkle thus: ce pourpoynt nestoyt pas bien basty.
1599. A. M., trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physic, 178/2. Replenishe therwith a little bagge … baest least the herbes fall together on a heape.
1611. Cotgr., Glacer … to flesh-bast; or stitch downe the lyning of a garment, thereby to keep it from sagging.
b. 1589. R. Harvey, Pl. Perc. (1590), 25. This patch here placd, the which I bast: And sow so fast.
1883. Chr. Globe, 13 Sept., 819/2. A doll’s dress that has been cut and basted by ‘a real dressmaker.’
c. 1540. Raynald, Birth Man, I. ii. (1634), 19. The very skin and it being both basted together, by a great number of small fibres.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, I. i. 289. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guardes are but slightly basted on neither.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., Concl. You have … basted up your first story very hastily and clumsily.
