bashi channel
/ˈbɑʃi/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.93 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
The strait, part of Luzon Strait, dividing Mavulis Island of the Philippines and Orchid Island/Lanyu of Taiwan and connecting the South China Sea/Taiwan Strait and Philippine Sea/Pacific Ocean.
Example Sentences
- "The islands on the North side of the Bashi Channel will be described hereafter."
- "Spain and Japan, having had some disagreements respecting the possession of certain islands lying between the Japanese Archipelago and the Philippines, have agreed that the Bashi Channel shall form the boundary between the possessions of the two States."
- "The Batanes are separated from Formosa by the Bashi Channel, which has a minimum depth of 1,009 fathoms, and from the Babuyanes by the Balintang Channel, which has a minimum depth of 95 fathoms."
- "Although the southern tip of Formosa is 225 miles from Luzon, the small islands at the northern end of the Philippines archipelago are separated from Formosa by only the 100-mile wide Bashi channel."
- "Accompanied by SEADRAGON and BLACKFISH, SHARK II (Commander E. N. Blakely) left Pearl Harbor on September 23 to begin her third war patrol. The pack slipped in through Luzon Strait and ranged along the 20° parallel, covering an area about midway between Hainan and the western end of Bashi Channel."
- "In May the Soviet fleet conducted war games off the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines. Reports that Soviet vessels had obtained the rights to base facilities in Cam Ranh Bay on Vietnam's east coast drew special attention to the exercises."
Etymology
From Bashi + channel. Bashee, later Bashi, is from a local language term for a type of liquor drunk plentifully by the crew of William Dampier when they landed on an island south of the channel, as reported in Dampier's book the popular sensation A New Voyage Round the World (page 422) published in 1697. According to Dampier, the crew named the island after the liquor. The channel would take the name of the island. (See also basi.)
Inflected Forms
Bashee Channel (alternative)
Bachi Channel (alternative)