noun
definition
A plant (Ocimum basilicum).
definition
The leaves of this plant used as a herb.
definition
Any other species in the genus Ocimum.
Examples of basil in a Sentence
The town successfully resisted the attacks of the emperor Basil II.
On July 29, 1014, Byzantine emperor Basil II defeated the Bulgarian army in the Battle of Kleidion.
As Dean entered the house, Sherlock Holmes was lecturing Watson in a voice sounding very much like Basil Rathbone while a radio across the room was playing soft music.
Basil had them carefully educated at the monastery of Studion, and afterwards advanced them to high official positions.
In fact a medley from both Basil and the Physiologus exists under the title of the Hexaeineron of Eustathius; some copies of the first bear as a title IIepi diuvnoXoyc'as, and in a Milan MS. the "morals" of the Physiologus are ascribed to Basil.
From the ecclesiastics Basil likewise insisted on unquestioning obedience, and he did not hesitate to depose by his own authority a metropolitan who was at that time the highest dignitary of the Russian Church.
His successor, Basil, tried to get himself elected grand-prince of Lithuania when the throne became vacant by the death of his brother-in-law in 1506, but the choice fell on the late prince's brother Sigismund, who was likewise elected king of Poland.
The principal production of this kind in our possession is the Hexaemeron of Basil, which contains several passages very like those of the Physiologus.
Mr Basil Thomson (who after Baker's deportation had carried out reforms which the natives, when left alone, were incapable of maintaining) was sent in 1900 to conclude the treaty by which the king placed his kingdom under British protection.
Origen's real opinion, however, may frequently be gathered from the Philocalia - a sort of anthology from his works prepared by Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzenus.
The swift Liburnian vessels began to raid the Lido, compelling the Venetians to arm their own vessels and thus to form the nucleus of their famous fleet, the importance of which was recognized by the Golden Bull of the emperor Basil, which conferred on Venetian merchants privileges far more extensive than any they had hitherto enjoyed, on condition that the Venetian fleet was to be at the disposition of the emperor.
Later, as in the works attributed to Basil Valentine, sulphur, mercury and salt are held to be the constituents of the metals.
The rhetorical schools experienced a brilliant revival under Constantine and his successors, when Athens became the alma mater of many notable men, including Julian, Libanius, Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus, and in her professors owned the last representatives of a humane and moralized paganism.
In 869 the see of Athens became an archbishopric. In 995 Attica was ravaged by the Bulgarians under their tsar Samuel, but Athens escaped; after the defeat of Samuel at Belasitza (1014) the emperor Basil II., who blinded 15,000 Bulgarian prisoners, came to Athens and celebrated his triumph by a thanksgiving service in the Parthenon (1018).
It is really not extraordinary that Isaac Hollandus was able to indicate the method of the preparation of the " philosopher's stone " from " adamic " or " virgin " earth, and its action when medicinally employed; that in the writings assigned to Roger Bacon, Raimon Lull, Basil Valentine and others are to be found the exact quantities of it to be used in transmutation; and that George Ripley, in the 15th century, had grounds for regarding its action as similar to that of a ferment.
The compounds of mercury attracted considerable attention, mainly on account of their medicinal properties; mercuric oxide and corrosive sublimate were known to pseudo-Geber, and the nitrate and basic sulphate to " Basil Valentine."
Basil of Caesarea, throwing over the cause of Eustathius, championed that of Meletius who, when after the death of Valens he returned in triumph to Antioch, was hailed as the leader of Eastern orthodoxy.
In the 9th century it was captured by the Bulgarians, and held by them until the beginning of the 11th century, when the Byzantine emperor Basil II.
The chief importance of the monastic rule and institute of St Basil lies in the fact that to this day his reconstruction of the monastic life is the basis of the monasticism of the Greek and Slavonic Churches, though the monks do not call themselves Basilians.
St Basil's claim to the authorship of the Rules and other ascetical writings that go under his name, has been questioned; but the tendency now is to recognize as his at any rate the two sets of Rules.
When (c. 360) Basil formed his monastery in the neighbourhood of Neocaesarea in Pontus, he deliberately set himself against these tendencies.
The two oldest churches date from the reign of Stephen the Great (1458-1504); perhaps the finest, however, are the 17thcentury metropolitan, St Spiridion and Trei Erarchi, the last a curious example of Byzantine art, erected in 1639 or 1640 by Basil the Wolf, and adorned with countless gilded carvings on its outer walls and twin towers.
There are a couple of methods for drying basil so choose the one that best suits your time line.
Freezing basil in bags is great for small storage areas inside the freezer.
During the disturbed reigns of Basil's seven immediate successors, Isaac by his prudent conduct won the confidence of the army; in 1057 he joined with the nobles of the capital in a conspiracy against Michael VI., and after the latter's deposition was invested with the crown, thus founding the new dynasty of the Comneni.
The order is recognized in the canons of the councils of Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451), and is frequently mentioned in the writings of Chrysostom (some of whose letters are addressed to deaconesses at Constantinople), Epiphanius, Basil, and indeed most of the more important Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries.
Yet now and again he rises to the level of some heroic event, and parts of his chapter on the "Campaign of Hastings" and of his record of the wars of Syracuse and Athens, his reflections on the visit of Basil the Second to the church of the Virgin on the Acropolis, and some other passages in his books, are fine pieces of eloquent writing.
The series of the Fathers alone contains Jerome (1516), Cyprian (1520), Pseudo-Arnobius (1522), Hilarius (1523), Irenaeus (Latin, 1526), Ambrose (1527), Augustine (1528), Chrysostom (Latin, 1530), Basil (Greek, 1532, the first Greek author printed in Germany), and Origen (Latin, 1536).
He does not tell us how it was prepared, but he describes the method of subliming it, which can leave no doubt that it was real sal ammoniac. In the Opera mineralia of Isaac Hollandus the elder, there is likewise a description of the mode of subliming sal ammoniac. Basil Valentine, in his Currus triumphalis antimonii, describes some of the peculiar properties of sal ammoniac in, if possible, a still less equivocal manner.
His theological attitude was that known as semiArian or Homoiousian, and his associates were Eustathius of Sebaste and Basil of Ancyra.
There is more than one meaning of Basil discussed in the 1911 Encyclopedia.
None but a scion of a priestly family could become a deacon, elder or bishop. Accordingly the primacy remained in the family of Gregory until about 374, when the king Pap or Bab murdered Nerses, who had been ordained by Eusebius of Caesarea (362-370) and was over-zealous in implanting in Armenia the canons about celibacy, marriage, fasting, hospices and monastic life which Basil had established in Cappadocia.
The life St Basil established was strictly cenobitical, with common prayer seven times a day, common work, common meals.
St Basil's influence, and the greater suitability of his institute to European ideas, ensured the propagation of Basilian monachism; and Sozomen says that in Cappadocia and the neighbouring provinces there were no hermits but only cenobites.
He set himself to reform his monastery and restore St Basil's spirit in its primitive vigour.
But to effect this, and to give permanence to the reformation, he saw that there was need of a more practical code of laws to regulate the details of the daily life, as a supplement to St Basil's Rules.
Thus to this day the Rules of Basil and the Constitutions of Theodore the Studite, along with the canons of the Councils, constitute the chief part of Greek and Russian monastic law.
Rufinus had translated St Basil's Rules into Latin (c. 400) and they became the rule of life in certain Italian monasteries.
They were known to St Benedict, who refers his monks to "the Rule of our holy Father Basil," - indeed St Benedict owed more of the ground-ideas of his Rule to St Basil than to any other monastic legislator.
There have been Basilian nuns from the beginning, St Macrina, St Basil's sister, having established a nunnery which was under his direction.
Porphyrogenitus, but it is now generally bestowed upon Constantine, the brother and colleague of Basil II.
There is a liturgy which bears his name, and which exists in two forms; the one form was found in a MS. of the 12th century in Calabria, and is, according to Renaudot, the foundation of the three liturgies of St Basil, St Gregory Nazianzen and St Cyril; the other is that which is used by the Maronite and Jacobite Syrians.
In this way such herbs as basil, marjoram, mint, sage, savory, thyme, balm, chamomile, horehound, hyssop and rue, as well as parsley, may be had throughout the season with almost the full flavour of the fresh herb.
Irenaeus regards as heretical the opinion that the souls of the departed pass immediately into glory; Tertullian, Cyprian, the Acts of St Perpetua, Clement of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, Gregory of Nyassa, Ambrose, Chrysostom and Jerome, all speak of prayer for the dead and seem to imply belief in a purgatory, but their view seems to have been affected by the pre-Christian doctrine of Hades or Sheol.
They also usually wear, like all Vaishnavas, a necklace of tulasi, or basil wood, and a rosary of seeds of the same shrub or of the lotus.
In this sect, children are solemnly admitted to full membership at the early age of four, and even two, years of age, when a rosary, or necklace, of 108 beads of basil (tulsi) wood is passed round their necks, and they are taught the use of the octo-syllabic formula Sri-Krishnah saranam mama, " Holy Krishna is my refuge."
The first change was introduced by Matthew Bassaraba, prince of Walachia (1633-54), and by Basil the Wolf, prince of Moldavia (1634-53).
The latter process, which was known to Basil Valentine, was commercially applied by the quack doctor, Joshua Ward (1685-1761), of Twickenham, England, to the manufacture of the acid, which was known as "oil of vitriol made by the bell" or per campanum.
In the course of the 6th century the collection was completed by the addition of documents already in existence, but which had hitherto remained isolated, notably the canonical letters of several great bishops, Dionysius of Alexandria, St Basil and others.
Basil, in his work On the Holy Spirit, confesses his ignorance of how these and other features of his baptismal rite had originated.