From Middle English bast, from Old English bæst, from Proto-Germanic *bastaz (compare the Swedish bast, Dutch bast, German Bast), perhaps an alteration of Proto-Indo-European *bʰask-, *bʰasḱ- (compare Middle Irish basc, Latin fascis, Albanian bashkë).

• (RP) IPA: /bɑːst/
• (America) IPA: /bæst/

bast

1. Fibre made from the phloem of certain plants and used for matting and cord.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC ↗:

     At the far end of the houses the head gardener stood waiting for his mistress, and he gave her strips of bass to tie up her nosegay. This she did slowly and laboriously, with knuckly old fingers that shook.

   • 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 87

     I thought I saw Him in the Long Walk there, by the bed of Nelly Roche, tending a fallen flower with a wisp of bast.

   • 1997, ‘Egil's Saga’, translated by Bernard Scudder, The Sagas of Icelanders, Penguin, published 2001, page 145:

     He had taken along a long bast rope in his sleigh, since it was the custom on longer journeys to have a spare rope in case the reins needed mending.

• (possibly) bastard

• German: Bast
• Portuguese: entrecasca
• Russian: лы́ко

1. (Egyptian god) Alternative spelling of Bastet