Etymology Dictionary

BASK,  to lie exposed to warmth.  (Scand.)   M.E. baske.   Palsgrave has—'I baske, I bathe in water or in any licour.'   β. It is certainly formed, like busk, from an Old Danish source, the -sk being reflexive.   The only question is whether it means 'to bake oneself' or 'to bathe oneself.'   All evidence shews that it is certainly the latter; yet both words are from the same root.   γ. Chaucer uses bathe hire, i.e. bathe herself, in the sense of bask; Nonne Prestes Tale, l. 446; and see Gower, C. A. i. 290; and the quotation above.   Wedgwood quotes a phrase in a Swedish dialect, at basa sig i solen, to bask in the sun; also solen baddar, the sun burns; solbase, the heat of the sun; badfisk, fishes basking in the sun; and other like phrases; see basa, to warm, in Rietz.   δ. Besides, the soft sound ð would easily fall out of a word, but bakask would be less compressible.   The derivation is then from an O. Scand. baðask, to bathe oneself, now represented by Icel. baðast, to bathe oneself, with the common corruption of final -sk to -st.   See Bath, and Busk.