Word.ws English Dictionary

bass

/beɪs/

bass adjective: of sound, a voice or an instrument, low in pitch or frequency.

bass: of sound, a voice or an instrument, low in pitch or frequency
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

bass (comparative basser, superlative bassest)

  1. Of sound, a voice or an instrument, low in pitch or frequency.
    • The giant spoke in a deep, bass, rumbling voice that shook me to my boots.

Noun (1)

bass (plural basses)

  1. A low spectrum of sound tones.
    • Peter adjusted the equalizer on his audio equipment to emphasize the bass.
  2. A section of a musical group that produces low-pitched sound, lower than the baritone and tenor.
    • The conductor preferred to situate the bass in the middle rear, rather than to one side of the orchestra.
  3. One who sings in the bass range.
    • Halfway through middle school, Edgar morphed from a soprano to a bass, much to the amazement and amusement of his fellow choristers.
    Synonyms:
    basso
  4. An instrument that plays in the bass range, in particular a bass guitar, double bass, electric bass, or bass synthesiser.
    • The musician swung the bass over his head like an axe and smashed it into the amplifier, creating a discordant howl of noise.
  5. (music notation) The clef sign that indicates that the pitch of the notes is below middle C.
    • The score had been written without the treble and bass, but it was easy to pick out which was which based on the location of the notes on the staff.
    Synonyms:
    bass clef, F clef

Verb

bass (third-person singular simple present basses, present participle bassing, simple past and past participle bassed)

  1. (transitive) To sound in a deep tone.
    • […] and the Thunder / (That deepe and dreadfull Organ-Pipe) pronounc'd / The name of Proſper : it did baſe my Treſpaſſe1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...

Noun (2)

IPA/bæs/

bass (countable and uncountable, plural basses or bass)

  1. The perch; any of various marine and freshwater fish resembling the perch, all within the order of Perciformes.

Noun (3)

IPA/bæs/

bass (countable and uncountable, plural basses)

  1. The fibrous inner bark of the linden or lime tree, used for making mats.
  2. Fibers from other plants, especially palm trees
  3. Anything made from such fibers, such as a hassock, basket or thick mat.
    • BASS, 1, a door mat[1865, William Stott Banks, A List of Provincial Words in use at Wakefield in Yorkshire, Wakefield: J.R.Smith, page 6
    • I set off half-heartedly, as best I could sheltering my spare clothes (which were in the straw fish-bass) under my coat. […] The rain made a channel from my trilby down my neck and one handle of the fish-bass gave way.1982 [1980], J. L. Carr, A Month in the Country, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books/Harvester Press, →ISBN, page 2

Proper noun capitalized: Bass

IPA/bæs/

Bass

  1. A surname.
  2. A rural town in Bass Coast Shire, Victoria, Australia, named after George Bass.
  3. An unincorporated community in Jackson County, Alabama.
  4. An unincorporated community in Newton County, Arkansas.
  5. An unincorporated community in Casey County, Kentucky.
  6. An unincorporated community in Cole County, Missouri.
  7. An unincorporated community in Hardy County, West Virginia, named for the presence of bass (fish) in the local creek.

bass meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

bass in Hindi

बास

bass in Tamil

அடித்தொனி, கீழ் அலைவெண் ஒலி, மட்டக்குரல், இங்கிலாந்தில் செய்யப்படும் மாத்தேறல் வகை, தோப்பி வகை, கடல்மீன் இனங்களின் வகை

bass in Marathi

बास, बाॅज

bass in Urdu

low in pitch
ڈھولک ḍhōlak
More languagesFewer languages
bass in Bengali
খাদ, অনুদাত্ত, খাদের সুর, শণসূতার কাপড়
bass in Malayalam
താഴ്ന്ന സ്ഥായിയിലുള്ള, താഴ്ന്ന, മൃദുശബ്ദമായ, അഗാധ
bass in Punjabi
ਬਾਸ
bass in Gujarati
બાસ, બાઝ
bass in Odia
ବାସ୍
bass in Nepali
बास
bass in Tagalog
malagong, lagong
bass in Arabic
غيتار البيس
bass in Indonesian
kakap
bass in Persian
گیتار بیس, باس bâs, خارماهی xârmâhi
bass in Thai
กีตาร์เบส
bass in Vietnamese
ghi-ta bass

Examples of bass in a sentence

  • Brooks performed a saxophone solo on stage, with Robert as accompaniment on the bass.
  • His low voice allowed him to become a bass in the choir.
  • She was sitting in a jazz club, sipping wine and listening to a bass player's solo.

All 40 example sentences with bass

Synonyms of bass

Forms of bass

Adjective
comparativebasser
superlativebassest
alternative form (dated)base
Noun
pluralbasses
pluralbass
alternative form (archaic)basse
Verb
third-person singular presentbasses
present participlebassing
past participlebassed
pastbassed

Plural of bass: basses

Origin of bass

A respelling of base under the influence of Italian basso (“low”).

From Middle English bace, bas, alteration of bars, from Old English bærs (“a fish, perch”), from Proto-West Germanic *bars, from Proto-Germanic *barsaz (“perch”, literally “prickly”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰórsos (“prickle, thorn, scale”). Cognate with Dutch baars (“perch, bass”), German Barsch (“perch”). More at barse.

A corruption of bast.

Words formed from bass

Phrases with bass

71 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with bass

45 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bass

What does bass mean?
Bass means of sound, a voice or an instrument, low in pitch or frequency.
What is bass in Hindi?
Bass in Hindi is बास. See Bass meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is bass?
Bass can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bass?
Bass is pronounced /beɪs/.

Words near bass in the dictionary

  1. Basran
  2. Basrans
  3. Basras
  4. basrelief
  5. basreliefs
  6. bass
  7. bass bar
  8. bass bars
  9. bass bin
  10. bass bins
  11. bass boat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bass (page history and authors); Bass (page history and authors); bass (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bass (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bass (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bass (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bass (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); bass (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bass (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bass (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); bass (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-bass-low.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bass.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bass. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.