On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: #I started to wonder if you were basking in the glow of satisfaction #from your excellent deduction, and wondered whether "bask" was to #"Basque" as "gyp" is to "Gypsy". Any takers? To make the mistake of taking you seriously: It isn't. OED OnLine (using "<dh>" for the Icelandic letter edh) says: app[arently] for earlier *bathask, after ON. ba<dh>ask, in later Icel. ba<dh>ast to bathe oneself, refl. of ba<dh>a to bathe. (With loss of "th": cf. "or" from other, sou'west, etc.) (obsolete) 1. intr. (also refl., and with pa. pple. quasi-trans.) To bathe, especially in warm water or liquid, and so transf. to be suffused with, or swim in, blood, etc. Obs. 2. trans. To expose to a flood of warmth, to suffuse with genial warmth. (Cf. to bathe in sunshine.) Chiefly refl.; = 3. 3. intr. To expose oneself to, or disport oneself in, an ambient flood of genial warmth, as in the sunshine, the rays of a fire; to lie enjoying the heat which radiates upon one. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel