Word.ws English Dictionary

bassinet

UK/ˌbæsɪˈnɛt//ˌbæsɪˈnɛt/

bassinet noun: a newborn baby's bed, traditionally woven with reeds or straw; a (wicker) cradle. Also the alternative form of bascinet.

bassinet: a newborn baby's bed, traditionally woven with reeds or straw; a (wicker) cradle
Image: Samuel van Hoogstraten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bassinet (plural bassinets)

  1. A newborn baby's bed, traditionally woven with reeds or straw; a (wicker) cradle.
    • The next day, the baby sleeps in a bassinet near my bed.2020, Avni Doshi, Burnt Sugar, Hamish Hamilton, page 198

Also used as

bassinet is also the alternative form of bascinet.

Forms of bassinet

pluralbassinets
alternative formbassinette

Origin of bassinet

From French bassinet (“small basin”), equivalent to basin + -et. Ernest Klein, however, suggests derivation from French bercelonnette (“cradle”), with influence from bassin(et), to account for the English sense's semantic specialization.

See bascinet.

Questions about bassinet

What does bassinet mean?
Bassinet means a newborn baby's bed, traditionally woven with reeds or straw; a (wicker) cradle.
What part of speech is bassinet?
Bassinet is a noun.
How do you pronounce bassinet?
Bassinet is pronounced /ˌbæsɪˈnɛt/ (UK).
What is the plural of bassinet?
The plural of bassinet is bassinets.

Words near bassinet in the dictionary

  1. bassier
  2. bassies
  3. bassiest
  4. bassily
  5. Bassin
  6. bassinet
  7. bassinets
  8. bassinette
  9. bassinettes
  10. bassing
  11. Bassingthorpe

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bassinet (page history and authors). 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-bassinet.oga.

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