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Origin and history of bassinet

bassinet(n.)

"wicker cradle," 1854, from French bassinet "a little basin," diminutive of bassin (see basin), or, as per Klein, the English word is from French bercelonette, double diminutive of berceau "cradle," altered by bassin "basin." Middle English had bacinet "hemispherical helmet" (c. 1300).

also from 1854

Entries linking to bassinet

basin(n.)

"large shallow vessel or dish used chiefly to hold water or other liquid," c. 1200, from Old French bacin (11c., Modern French bassin), from Vulgar Latin *baccinum (source also of Spanish bacin, Italian bacino), from *bacca "water vessel," perhaps originally Gaulish (but OED dismisses the proposed Celtic cognates on sense grounds). The meaning "large-scale artificial water-holding landscape feature" is from 1712. The geological sense of "tract of country drained by one river or draining into one sea" is from 1830.

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    Trends of bassinet

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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