Third-person singular or plural present tense of bast: to sew with long loose stitches, to soak fiber to soften it, or to beat or thrash.
Multiple origins converge: the sewing sense from Old French 'baste,' the fiber sense from Middle English relating to the bast fiber from flax or hemp, and the beating sense from Old Norse 'beysta.'
Bast fibers were the original textiles—linen, rope, and canvas all come from basting (beating and soaking) the fibrous stalks of flax and hemp, technologies that haven't fundamentally changed in 5,000 years!
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