BASS, OR BAST. A soft sedge or rush (_Juncus lævis_), of which coarse kinds of rope and matting are made. A Gaelic term for the blade of an oar.
BASSE. A species of perch (_Perca labrax_), found on the coast and in estuaries, commonly about 18 inches long.
BASSOS. A name in old charts for shoals; whence bas-fond and basso-fondo. Rocks a-wash, or below water.
BAST. Lime-tree, linden (_Tilia europea_). Bast is made also from the bark of various other trees, macerated in water till the fibrous layers separate. In the Pacific Isles it is very fine and strong, from _Hibiscus tiliaceus_.
BASTA. A word in former use for _enough_, from the Italian.
BASTARD. A term applied to all pieces of ordnance which are of unusual or irregular proportions: the government bastard-cannon had a 7-inch bore, and sent a 40-lb. shot. Also, a fair-weather square sail in some Mediterranean craft, and occasionally used for an awning.
BASTARD-MACKEREL, OR HORSE-MACKEREL. The _Caranx trachurus_, a dry, coarse, and unwholesome fish, of the family _Scombridæ_, very common in the Mediterranean.
BASTARD-PITCH. A mixture of colophony, black pitch, and tar. They are boiled down together, and put into barrels of pine-wood, forming, when the ingredients are mixed in equal portions, a substance of a very liquid consistence, called in France _bray gras_. If a thicker consistence is desired, a greater proportion of colophony is added, and it is cast in moulds. It is then called _bastard-pitch_.
BASTE, TO. To beat in punition. A mode of sewing in sail-making.
BASTILE. A temporary wooden tower, used formerly in naval and military warfare.
BASTIONS. Projecting portions of a rampart, so disposed that the bottom of the escarp of each part of the whole rampart may be defended from the parapet of some other part. Their form and dimensions are influenced by many considerations, especially by the effect and range of fire-arms; but it is essential to them to have two faces and two flanks; the former having an average length, according to present systems, of 130 yards, the latter of 40 yards.
BASTON, OR BATON. A club used of old by authority. (_See_ BATOON.)
BASTONADO. Beating a criminal with sticks [from _bastone_, a cudgel]. A punishment common among Jews, Greeks, and Romans, and still practised in the Levant, China, and Russia.