Search Result for "basic": 
Wordnet 3.0

NOUN (2)

1. a popular programming language that is relatively easy to learn; an acronym for beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code; no longer in general use;

2. (usually plural) a necessary commodity for which demand is constant;
[syn: basic, staple]


ADJECTIVE (4)

1. pertaining to or constituting a base or basis;
- Example: "a basic fact"
- Example: "the basic ingredients"
- Example: "basic changes in public opinion occur because of changes in priorities"

2. reduced to the simplest and most significant form possible without loss of generality;
- Example: "a basic story line"
- Example: "a canonical syllable pattern"
[syn: basic, canonic, canonical]

3. serving as a base or starting point;
- Example: "a basic course in Russian"
- Example: "basic training for raw recruits"
- Example: "a set of basic tools"
- Example: "an introductory art course"
[syn: basic, introductory]

4. of or denoting or of the nature of or containing a base;


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Basic \Ba"sic\, a. 1. (Chem.) (a) Relating to a base; performing the office of a base in a salt. (b) Having the base in excess, or the amount of the base atomically greater than that of the acid, or exceeding in proportion that of the related neutral salt. (c) Apparently alkaline, as certain normal salts which exhibit alkaline reactions with test paper. [1913 Webster] 2. (Min.) Said of crystalline rocks which contain a relatively low percentage of silica, as basalt. [1913 Webster] Basic salt (Chem.), a salt formed from a base or hydroxide by the partial replacement of its hydrogen by a negative or acid element or radical. [1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

BASIC \BASIC\ n. 1. (Computers) [Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Iruction C.] an artificial computer language with a relatively simplified instruction set. Note: Writing a program in BASIC or other higher computer languages is simpler than writing in assembly language. See also programming language, FORTRAN. [PJC]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

higher programming language \higher programming language\ n. (Computers) A computer programming language with an instruction set allowing one instruction to code for several assembly language instructions. Note: The aggregation of several assembly-language instructions into one instruction allows much greater efficiency in writing computer programs. Most programs are now written in some higher programming language, such as BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, C, C++, PROLOG, or JAVA. [PJC]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

basic adj 1: pertaining to or constituting a base or basis; "a basic fact"; "the basic ingredients"; "basic changes in public opinion occur because of changes in priorities" [ant: incident, incidental] 2: reduced to the simplest and most significant form possible without loss of generality; "a basic story line"; "a canonical syllable pattern" [syn: basic, canonic, canonical] 3: serving as a base or starting point; "a basic course in Russian"; "basic training for raw recruits"; "a set of basic tools"; "an introductory art course" [syn: basic, introductory] 4: of or denoting or of the nature of or containing a base n 1: a popular programming language that is relatively easy to learn; an acronym for beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code; no longer in general use 2: (usually plural) a necessary commodity for which demand is constant [syn: basic, staple]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

106 Moby Thesaurus words for "basic": ab ovo, aboriginal, acid, alkali, austere, bare, basal, basilar, bedrock, biochemical, bottom, capital, central, chaste, chemical, chemicobiological, chemicoengineering, chemicomineralogical, chemicophysical, chemurgic, chief, constituent, constitutive, copolymeric, copolymerous, crucial, dimeric, dimerous, electrochemical, element, elemental, elementary, embryonic, essential, focal, foundational, fundamental, generative, genetic, germinal, gut, heteromerous, homely, homespun, homogeneous, in embryo, in ovo, indispensable, indivisible, irreducible, isomerous, key, life-and-death, life-or-death, macrochemical, main, material, mere, metameric, monolithic, monomerous, nonacid, of a piece, of the essence, of vital importance, original, part and parcel, photochemical, physicochemical, phytochemical, plain, polymeric, pregnant, primal, primary, prime, primeval, primitive, primordial, principal, pristine, protogenic, pure, pure and simple, radical, radiochemical, root, rudiment, rudimentary, seminal, severe, simon-pure, simple, single, spare, stark, substantial, substantive, thermochemical, unadorned, uncluttered, underlying, undifferenced, undifferentiated, uniform, vital
V.E.R.A. -- Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (February 2016):

BASIC Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code
The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):

BASIC /bay'?sic/, n. A programming language, originally designed for Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s, which for many years was the leading cause of brain damage in proto-hackers. Edsger W. Dijkstra observed in Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective that ?It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.? This is another case (like Pascal) of the cascading lossage that happens when a language deliberately designed as an educational toy gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs (on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer (a) is very painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will make it harder to use more powerful languages well. This wouldn't be so bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end micros in the 1980s. As it is, it probably ruined tens of thousands of potential wizards. [1995: Some languages called ?BASIC? aren't quite this nasty any more, having acquired Pascal- and C-like procedures and control structures and shed their line numbers. ?ESR] BASIC stands for ?Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code?. Earlier versions of this entry claiming this was a later backronym were incorrect.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

BASIC Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. A simple language originally designed for ease of programming by students and beginners. Many dialects exist, and BASIC is popular on microcomputers with sound and graphics support. Most micro versions are interactive and interpreted. BASIC has become the leading cause of brain-damage in proto-hackers. This is another case (like Pascal) of the cascading lossage that happens when a language deliberately designed as an educational toy gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs (on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer is painful and encourages bad habits that will make it harder to use more powerful languages. This wouldn't be so bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end micros. As it is, it ruins thousands of potential wizards a year. Originally, all references to code, both GOTO and GOSUB (subroutine call) referred to the destination by its line number. This allowed for very simple editing in the days before text editors were considered essential. Just typing the line number deleted the line and to edit a line you just typed the new line with the same number. Programs were typically numbered in steps of ten to allow for insertions. Later versions, such as BASIC V, allow GOTO-less structured programming with named procedures and functions, IF-THEN-ELSE-ENDIF constructs and WHILE loops etc. Early BASICs had no graphic operations except with graphic characters. In the 1970s BASIC interpreters became standard features in mainframes and minicomputers. Some versions included matrix operations as language primitives. A public domain interpreter for a mixture of DEC's MU-Basic and Microsoft Basic is here (ftp://oak.oakland.edu/pub/Unix-c/languages/basic/basic.tar-z). A yacc parser and interpreter were in the comp.sources.unix archives volume 2. See also ANSI Minimal BASIC, bournebasic, bwBASIC, ubasic, Visual Basic. [Jargon File] (1995-03-15)