BASE. In architecture: (a) The part of a column between t'he bottom of the shaft and the top of the pedestal. In eases in which there is no pedestal, then the base is the part between the bottom of the column and the plinth. (b) A plinth with its moldings consti tuting the lower part (that which slightly pro jects) of the vrall of a room.
In botany, a term applied to the part of a leaf adjoining the leaf-stalk, to that portion of a pericarp which adjoins the peduncle, or to anything similarly situated.
In chemistry, a body capable of replacing the hydrogen of an acid so as to produce a new compound called a °salt,'" which contains the base and all the elements of the acid ex cept the displaced hydrogen. The name was given by Rouelle in 1744, and is now loosely used to signify a metal, a salt-forming"oxide or hydroxide, or an organic body, such as an alka loid, an amide, an amine, pyridine, quinoline, etc., which is capable of combining with an acid to form a salt. When oxides combine with acids their oxygen unites with the liberated hydro gen of the acid to form water. A body (like caustic potash KOH), is said to be strongbr basic when it forms salts that are very stable and are, not altered by hot or cold water.
In fortification, the exterior side of a poly gon, or the imaginary line connecting the salient angles of two adjacent bastions.
In geometry: (a) The base of an otdinary triangle is its third side, not necessarily the one drawn at the bottom of the diagram, but the one which has not yet been mentioned, while the two others have (Euclid, book I, prop. 4,
Enunciation). (b) The base of an isosceles tri angle is the side which is not one of, the equal two (Ibid. prop. 5, Enunciation). (c) 'The base of a parallelogram is the straight line on which in any particular proposition the parallelogram is assumed to stand (Ibid. prop. It also is not necessarily drawn the lowest in the fig ure (Ibid. prop. 47. (d) The base of a cone is the circle described by that side containing the right angle which revolves (Euclid, book xi, def. 20). (e) The bases of a cylinder are the circles described by the two rotary opposite sides of the parallelogram, by the revolution of, which it is formed, (Ibid. def, 23).
In heraldry, the lower part of a shield, or, more specifically, the width of a bar parted off from the lower part of.a shield by .a horizontal line. It is called also base-bar, baste and plain point ((Glossary of Heraldry)).
In military affairs, see Tames.
In ordnance, the protuberant rear portion of a gun between the knot of the' cascabel and the base-ring. • In sculpture, the pedestal of a statue.
In trigonometry, surveying and mapmaking, a base or base-line is a straight line measured on the ground from the two extremities of which angles will be taken with the view of laying down a triangle or series of triangles, and so mapping out the country to be surveyed.
In zoology, that portion of anything by which it is attached to anything else of higher value or signification (Dana).