basis: Meaning and Definition of

ba•sis

Pronunciation: (bā'sis), [key]
— pl. -ses
  1. the bottom or base of anything; the part on which something stands or rests.
  2. anything upon which something is based; fundamental principle; groundwork.
  3. the principal constituent; fundamental ingredient.
  4. a basic fact, amount, standard, etc., used in making computations, reaching conclusions, or the like: The nurse is paid on an hourly basis. He was chosen on the basis of his college grades.
  5. a set of linearly independent elements of a given vector space having the property that every element of the space can be written as a linear combination of the elements of the set.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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