the.com/basin
A bowl big enough to hold a river's entire ambition.
means A wide, hollow container for holding water or other liquids — or, by extension, any bowl-shaped depression in the land that collects water, like the area drained by a river.
from From Old French 'bacin,' which came through Late Latin 'baccinum,' meaning a water vessel. The deeper root is uncertain, possibly Gaulish, hinting at a word that older Celtic-speaking peoples already used for a basin-like dish. The geographical sense — a 'river basin' or 'ocean basin' — is a later figurative stretch, the language noticing that the land, too, cups water in hollows just as a bowl does.
- watershed scale
- The Amazon basin spans nearly 40 percent of South America
- hidden plumbing
- Underground basins store more freshwater than all rivers combined
- ocean floor
- Deep ocean basins cover most of Earth's surface
- word roots
- From Latin 'baccinum,' a water vessel
- closed loop
- Endorheic basins trap water with no exit to sea
amazon basin — largest drainage basin on earth, covers ~7 million km² across south america
congo basin — second largest basin by area, ~3.7 million km² in central africa
mississippi basin — drains 31 u.s. states and 2 canadian provinces, covers ~3.2 million km²
dead sea basin — lowest point on earth at 430m below sea level, israel-jordan border